%:- 







r ~. - 



-0 cl. *<- 




\""\# 



CO 1 
«5 ■% 



> ,o- 






<*>^ 

V 










% ^ 81 ^V V ,,, ; ^/*a 







•V ^ 



o 



•0 V s 






' J <- 



.••*> 



&.% 















^ v* 









*" ** "^ ' 






■V •%* 



V '^ 



P m., V 'o, v* A "b • 













00 ' '^-V 



^ & : 



*i 

v. ^ 



A 






V 















' . - 




> 


. 



>' 









» ** 















A* 



V.A 


















THE PEDIGREE 



ENGLISH PEOPLE 



Ek 5£ twv elprjixivuv TeKfiypiuiv, 6/j.cos Toiavra (Lv tis vop'ifav /mXicrxa a 
SirjXdov, ovx a/J-ipTavof ko.1 oore Cos iroirjral vpvrjKao-c irepl avr&v, iirl to 
fiel^ov Koap-ouvres, /jl3.\\oi> iriaTevoiv, ovre Cos \oyoypd<poi ^vviOeuav iirl to 
irpoo-ayuyoTepov tt) aKpodaei, r) dXrjBeoTepov, Ivto. dve^eXeyKTa, Kal to. ttoXXo. 
virb xp° v °v cvtQv airiaTus enl to p.vOCob'es iKva/iKTjKora' evpr)a6ai Se Tjyrjird- 
p.evos £k tuc eirL^aveaTaTUV arjpdwv, Cos iraXat-d etvdi, aTroxpCovTcos. 

Tliucydides. 

Mir iracjcn bic listen nnszxtx Wiitx, iau hsxx ibr (Sutcs rmpfunjett babcn- 

Novalis, 



during' the 

sk%m heptarcit 

GERMAN 



O C E v4 A 





1 w — K ^ 



r^a 



J uddXC. Li lADoctors Commons Londo 




British ($tj)M)fogg. 



THE PEDIGREE 



THE ENGLISH PEOPLE: 

AN ARGUMENT, HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC, 

ON THE 

$axmztxoxx %uh ^nr&rijr of i\t %^iifsx\\ 

TRACING RACE-ADMIXTURE IN BRITAIN FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES, WITH 
ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE INCORPORATION OF 



THOMAS NICHOLAS M.A., Ph.D., F.G.S. 



[FOURTH EDITION.} 



London : 

LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND CO. 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 



[874. 



[All Rights Reserved.] 



-fc 



^ 



.^v 




LONDON: JDDU AXl) 00., riur.MX 



r99 




PREFACE. 



The Question Stated : The Course of t: ie 
Argument. 

The early annals of Britain and the Race rela- 
tions of the English People are in our day gaining- 
increasing attention. The liberalizing influence of 
science has relaxed many sturdy prejudices, and its 
light has so far dispelled historic superstitions, that 
a chance of obtaining a hearing is now afforded 
even when cherished national beliefs are sought to be 
dislodged. 

The Author is not aware that the main positions 
he has laid down have ever been expressly advocated 
by any of our historians. The ground, it is true, is 
old, and the materials, always in great part at hand, 
have of late been much increased by the quarrying of 
our public archives ; but no structure has hitherto 
been planned and reared. 

A presumption lies against the soundness of alJ 



VI 



innovating ideas. The popular theory, believed in 
from the time of Gildas, that the English nation is 
the proper descendant of the Anglo-Saxons, is "in 
possession," and enjoys all the force of an article of 
national faith. Whoever, therefore, wishes to show 
that a moiety, perhaps the greater part, of the subjects 
of the early Anglian and Saxon kingdoms must have 
been of the "British" race, and not men who had 
come over in small open boats from the barren shores 
of the Baltic ; and that subsequent changes during long 
ages of immigration, conquest, revolution, brought no 
substantial ethnical change upon the people of Britain, 
must, of course, give his Reasons. 

Notwithstanding the freedom now professedly con- 
ceded to scientific inquiry, the Author advances his 
Faith and his Reasons with a measure of diffidence. 
Of their truth and solidity he entertains no question, 
although he has written throughout as an inquirer and 
student. But the inveteracy of national sentiments, 
long dominant, and supposed to favour national 
heraldic fame, is proverbial. When learned men 
accommodate their teaching to the popular apprehen- 
sion, instead of guiding and correcting it, that man 
who thinks it his duty to put in a word for a neglected 
Truth, has perhaps not a pleasant prospect : he must 
seek comfort by an appeal from Tradition to Fact, 
and go on, saying, with Galileo Galilei, E purse muove ' 

The object of the work is to trace, step by step, 
that process of race-amalgamation which has issued 



Vll 



in the compound people called English, maintaining 
special reference throughout to the proportion of that 
people's descent from the Celtic inhabitants of Britain 
usually called the " Ancient Britons." 

The latter term, when used in this volume, signifies 
the different tribes, clans, or nations inhabiting Britain 
at the time of the Roman invasion, and their descend- 
ants; and the "English People" means the great 
body of the English nation proper in Great Britain 
and its dependencies. 

The course of the Argument proceeds thus : — It is 
first shown that the numerous tribes found by the 
Romans in possession of the British Isles, were all 
presumably of what is called the Celtic race, and 
presented only such dissimilarities as would arise from 
separation into independent clans or States — dissimi- 
larities, indeed, which marked them on the Continent 
as well as in Britain, as partly proved by recent dis- 
coveries of Gaulish inscriptions which seem to reveal 
dialectic varieties in the Celtic language of Ancient 
Gaul similar to those which still distinguish the Cymro 
from the Gael. Although among these numerous 
tribes, the Cymry may rightfully claim pre-eminence, 
as that branch of the family which both sustained 
the heaviest shock from the Teutonic invasion, and 
tinged most deeply the new race with Celtic blood — 
the Gaels having from remote ages pushed their way 
northwards, and into Ireland — the term " Ancient 



Britons" cannot be confined to them, but must be 



Vlll 



made to comprehend Belgae, Lloegrians, Brython r 
Gaels or Gwyddyls, Picts, Scots, &c; in short, all the 
early Celtic inhabitants of Britain and Ireland. The 
amount of Celtic blood, therefore, which, from what- 
ever tribe, and in whatever age, has entered into the 
English people in the British Isles, is taken as the 
measure of their derivation from the Celtic Abori- 
gines, or Ancient Britons. 

The object of introducing a sketch of the general 
condition of the Britons before the Roman invasion 
has been twofold : first, the supplying the g r eneral 
reader with information expurgated from myth and 
tradition, in a field of history little traversed ; and, 
secondly, the constructing of a subsidiary argument, 
a priori, from the improbability of a people such as 
were the Britons being dislodged wholesale by the 
kind of people who became their subduers. 

Stress is laid, not only on the substantial oneness, 
but also on the number, distribution, and intellectual 
advancement of the Ancient British populations. From 
all these would arise their fitness to assert their place, 
as history proves them to have done, as against both 
Romans and Anglo-Saxons. 

The testimony of history, both direct and negative, is 
carefully employed ; and, when corroborator}- to this, 
but never when contradictory of it, even the voice of 
legend and tradition (as in the case of the Triads) is 
with proper caution listened to. 

The researches of modern writers- — German, French 
and English — in Ethnology, Philology, Physiology, 



IX 



are then taken into account; and it is believed that 
as the result, the mixed and largely Celtic character 
of the English nation is demonstrated from the point of 
view and the use of evidences sanctioned by the most 
recent labours of science. 

From a conviction of the importance of the argu- 
ment from Philology •, though with a consciousness of 
its great liability to abuse, the chapter on that subject 
has been prepared with laborious care. The Tables 
given are the fruit of an analysis of the modern 
Dictionary and of early English for which the author 
alone is responsible. There has never before been an 
attempt to distinguish with something approaching to 
precision that class of Celtic words which the English 
must have derived directly from the Celtic tongues, 
and in Britain. And yet this class alone can have a 
legitimate bearing upon the question. 

The result of a careful and rigorous application of 
the arguments, inductive and deductive, drawn from 
the various fields of evidence, has been a conviction 
more clear and positive than the writer, when some 
years ago he resolved to investigate the subject, had 
himself anticipated, that the English people embraces 
a much larger infusion of Ancient British blood than 
English historians have been accustomed to recognise, 
and that some of the most valuable attributes, 
physical, intellectual, and moral, of the " True 
Briton," are owing to this fact. 

The aim throughout has been to produce, on how- 
ever small a scale, a contribution to genuine history 



and ethnology. The author is not ambitious of gaining 
a name for bold hypotheses. Conjectures, except as 
means for unravelling the entanglements of facts, are 
an inpertinence in history. Of theories respecting 
the inhabitants, language, and literature of Ancient 
Britain, we have had more than sufficient. Too free 
a reliance on legend, fanciful ethnology, ingenious 
theory, has estranged scholarly men in England from 
the study of the Ancient British Annals, and the 
Celtic Tongues ; and it is only by the adoption of a 
.sober and painstaking method of treatment, such as 
will promote knowledge, and satisfy sound judgment 
rather than national vain-glory, that we can hope to 
regain for it the attention it deserves. By the 
.accumulation and careful induction of facts, and 
by the adoption of the best established views in 
ethnology^ the writer has endeavoured to contribute to 
the establishment of a truth in our national history 
hitherto unaccountably neglected. Opinion on this 
subject is gradually changing. Among our most 
accomplished English annalists, Turner, Palgrave. 
and Kemble; and among ethnologists and philo- 
logists, Prichard, Latham, Stokes, and Garnett, have 
done much to prepare the way for its candid investi- 
gation. 

The author has to acknowledge his great obliga- 
tions to Professor Max Muller, M.A., oi Oxford, to 
Dr. R. G. Latham, F.R.S., to Dr. S. Davidson, to 

Dr. Rowland Williams, and to the Rev. E. Mellor, 



XI 



A.M., for valuable criticisms on the work in MS., and 
suggestions which have contributed in no small degree 
to its improvement ; and the list of Authors appended, 
together with the numerous references throughout, will 
show to what extent he has availed himself of the best 
sources and authorities, ancient and modern, and of 
the most recent scientific research. 

Part I. is to be understood as introductory ; the main 
Argument is embodied in the succeeding parts. 

The less accurate orthography, Celtic rather than 
Keltic, is followed in deference to prevailing custom. 
Until the hard sound of c before c and i, as well as 
before a, o, and u, in words of Latin and Greek origin, is 
restored in practice, or the place of c filled by k in our 
classical scholarship, it is hardly worth while making 
an exception in the single case of the word Celt and 
its associates. The same rule would apply to Cicero, 
Cecrops, Cimbri, Cilida, in all of which the c should, 
in strictness, be sounded like k. German scholars, 
like those of some other continental countries, are led 
by the analogy of their own language to the more 
accurate pronunciation of the classical tongues. The 
English, who in this and other matters are slow to 
adopt the linguistic reforms pleaded for by Professor 
Blackie, have unfortunately an impediment to rational 
usage sanctioned by the rules of their own orthoepy. 

London, January, 1868. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION 



The work having been out of print for nearly three 
years, the present Edition, long promised, and already 
in great measure ordered, is brought out to meet the 
public demand. 

Two causes more especially operated in exhausting 
the Second Edition : one, the increased interest of 
late created in the history and languages of the Celtic 
race, and the early Annals of Britain ; the other, an 
unsuccessful attack made upon the book in the Court 
of Chancery, contributing, perhaps unintentionally, to 
make it more widely known, and to give its argu- 
ment a character for independence and originality 
which it might not otherwise so indisputably possess. 

The author has no reason to complain of the 
reception given the work by the critical journals. At 
home, along with a generous estimate of the pro- 
duction as a whole, despite its defects, a readiness 
has been shewn to consider, de novo, the race 
composition of the English people, and in the main 
to approve the doctrine pleaded for in these pages. 
On the Continent, reviews of a commendatory kind 
have appeared in several journals. Our men ol 
science, from their own independent points of view, 
are gradually rejecting the old opinions. Ex. gr. 
Professor Huxley says emphatically: — "In Britain, 



Xlll 

the Teutonic dialects have overpowered the pre- 
existing forms of speech, and the people are vastly 
less 'Teutonic ' than their language." Of the practice 
"of speaking of the present inhabitants of Britain 
as an 'Anglo Saxon' people," he says, "it is, in 
fact, just as absurd as the habit of talking of the 
French people as a ' Latin ' race, because they speak 
a language which is in the main derived from 
Latin." 1 Many other declarations of like nature 
might be adduced, shewing the tendency of candid 
opinion guided by recent enquiry. 

This edition is the result of careful revision and 
the addition of much new matter. The Section on 
Gildas, otherwise unaltered, is supplemented with 
what is believed to be an exposure of a fraud, or 
blunder, on the part of the writer who goes under that 
name, of no little significancy in early English 
History (pp. 219-224), The Section on the ethno- 
logical effects of the Norman Conquest has been 
re-written and considerably amplified. 

The author, who was attacked by a severe illness 
while the work was printing, wishes to acknowledge 
with especial thanks the kind and valuable assistance 
rendered him by the Rev. Robert Gwynne, B.A., in 
collating and verifying authorities, correcting the 
press, and making a complete Lidex. 

London, Christmas Day, 1873. 

1 Critiques and Addresses, pp. 176, 177. London, 1S73. 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 

This Edition is a reprint, without much alteration, 
of the Third Edition, for which the work had been 
carefully revised throughout. 

London, May i, 1874. 



MAPS AND DIAGRAMS. 



Britain under the Anglo-Saxons 
Routes of Celtic Migration, to face 
Roman Cities of Britain 
Parts which supplied the Norman Army . . 
Crania . . . . . . . . . . 



Fronting Title. 
Page 35 

J 75 

283 

474 



Note on the Anglo-Saxon Map. 



The Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms were very unsettled in boundary, and some of 
them of very short continuance. They were a Heptarchy after Northumberland 
(A.D. 655) became one kingdom— an Octarchy, as long as its two divisions, 
Deira and Bemicia (old Celtic names), formed separate sovereignties — a period of 
less than a hundred years. The Western side, containing Strathclyde, Wales, and 
Cornwall, coloured uniformly on the Map, never formed part of the Heptarchy, 
or Octarchy, unless we except the southern end of Strathclyde, for a time 
usurped by Bernicia. Wessex — on some maps erroneously made to include 
Cornwall — at no time ruled beyond the river Tamar, and Cornwall only fell under 
direct English rule after the absorption of the Anglo-Saxon States in united 
England. The chief towns, or capitals, of several of the states of the Heptarchy 
cannot be well distinguished ; and it may be questioned whether these ever 
possessed a settled local government, their existence being only prolonged by an 
incessant state of war. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
Introductory. 

CHAPTER I. 

NATIONAL ORIGIN. 

Paie 

Section I. — The Composite Character of Nations .... 19 
Section II. — Origin of the Aboriginal British Population obscure 
— The Analogy of other Early Nations 2 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ANCIENT BRITONS —THEIR ETHNOLOGICAL AFFINITIES — THEIR STATE 
OF CULTURE. 

Section I. — Results of Modern Ethnological Research respecting 

the Earl}- Inhabitants of the British Isles ..... 25 

(a.) Preliminary Ethnological data 26 

(/;.) The remote relations of Celts and Teutons ... 28 
(r.) The relations of the Celtic Tribes of Britain amongst 

themselves — The Cymry, Belgas, &c 32 

t. The Cymry, Kipftiptoi, Cimbri, Cimmerii ... 34 

2. The Belgas 36 

3. The Celts of Britain and Gaul generally ... 43 

4. The Celts of Ireland and Caledonia .... 45 

5. The Lloegrians and the Brython . . . • • 53 
{d.) The Welsh Triads on the Early Settlers in Britain 54 

Section II. — An estimate of the Social Condition and Civilisation 
of the Britons at the time of the Roman Conquest . . -59 

(a.) Early Notices — Herodotus, Himilco, Polybius . ■ 59 

B 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Page 

(b.) Csesar and Tacitus 61 

(c.) Organisation and Government 63 

(d.) Arts of Civilised Life 64 

(e.) Intellectual Culture 69 



PART II. 
The Invasions of Britain — The Elements of Ad- 
mixture of Race Accumulating. — Admixture 
Commencing. 

chapter 1. 

The Roman Invasion S5 

CHAPTER II. 
The Anglo-Saxon Invasion 97 

CHAPTER III. 
The Danish Invasion 107 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Norman Invasion 11=; 



PART III. 

The Argument for Admixture of Race — The 

Question: "To what Extent is the English 

Nation of Celtic Origin?" Discussed. 



chapter 1. 

THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT. 

Section I. — The Compound " British " People .... 123 

II. — The Extent to which Britain was Populated at the 
time of the Roman Invasion i:S 

1. Britain at the coming of the Romans was generally 
populated i:i) 

2. The Expulsion or Destruction of the Natives was no 

part of the Roman policy ij4 



CONTENTS. 3 

Page 

Section III. — The Extent and Power of the British Population 
during subsequent stages of the Roman occupation . . . 137 

1. The prolonged resistance offered by the Britons to the 

Roman Conquest ...«"&. 

(a.) From Claudius to Severus: a.d. 43 — 211 . . 138 
(b.) Retention of the Conquest — Troubles — Prepara- 
tion for Departure : a.d. 211 — 412 . . . 152 
(c.) Recapitulation ....... 155 

(d.) The Conquests of the Christian Church in Roman 

Britain ........ 159 

2. Statistical details left by Ancient Authors touching the 

distribution of the British Population in Roman 
times .......... 1G1 

(a.) Tribes of Britain mentioned by Caesar . . 164 

(b.) Tribes of Britain enumerated by Ptolemy, with 

the districts they inhabited .... 164 

(c.) Tribes mentioned by Richard of Cirencester not 

included in Ptolemy's account . . . 165 

(d.) The Roman Settlements — Municipia, Colonice, 

&c, as evidence of Population . . . 170 

3. The addition to the population through the accession cf 

Roman residents ........ 179 

(a.) The first and largest accession of Roman blood 

was in the Army ...... 1S0 

(b.) The Civil Functionaries, &c, .... ib. 

(c.) Merchants, Traders, Artists, &:. . . . 1S1 

(d.) But the Romans were confined to the towns . ib. 

4. The Roman residents withdrew en masse from the Island 

when the military occupation terminated . . . 1S2 

Section IV. — Admixture of Race during the Roman occupation . 185 

Section V. — The Influence of the Roman Conquest upon the Celtic 
character of Western Britain 190 

Section VI. — The Numerical and Material Strength of the Britons 
at the Anglo-Saxon Invasion ....... 195 

1. The effect of the Roman dominion on the Spirit and 

Capacity of the Nation ...... 19 "> 

2. The Recovery of the Ancient Spirit and Rule . . 137 

B 2 



4 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Pagar 

3. The Eritons, at the Coming of the Anglo-Saxons, wide- 

spread and numerous 200 

4. The Resistance offered to the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, 

an Evidence of the Numerical and Material Strength 

of the Britons 201 

Section VII.— The Extent to which the Britons and Anglo-Saxons 
became incorporated into one people 210 

1. Gildas examined ........ 212 

Gildas's blunder, or fraud, detected .... 219 

2. The Aboriginal race surpassed in number their Anglo- 

Saxon invaders ........ 227 

3. The Britons did not suffer, relatively, a diminution of 

number from war ........ 230 

4. On the extent to which the Britons remained on the 

conquered territory, and amalgamated with the Anglo- 
Saxon conquerors. ........ 233. 

(a.) From the first Saxon invasion to the founding 

of the kingdom of Mercia in a.d. 586. . . ib. 
(b.) From the founding of Mercia to the union under 

Egbert of Wessex, a.d. 586 — S2S. . . . 241 

(c.) From the death of Egbert to the Conquest, and 

forwards ........ 250 

Section VIII. — Influence of the Danish and Norman invasions on 
the Ethnological Character of the English people . . . 2-66 

1. The Danish invasion in its influence on the distribution 

and admixture of Race 267 

2. The Effect of the Norman Conquest on the Ethnical 

Character of the English people ..... 271 

Section IX. — The History of the Political and Social Relations of 
the people, as indicative of the presence of the Ancient British 
race, and of its condition, in the settled Anglo-Saxon kingdoms 304 

1. The Constitution of Society among the Anglo-Saxons . 305 

2. Britons in a state of bondage 313 



CHAPTER II. 

THE EVIDENCE OF PHILOLOGY. 

Section I. — ICurly stages of relation between the Anglo-Saxon 

and British Celtic languages 319- 



CONTEXTS. 5 

Pa re 

i. Language of Britain at the Saxon Invasion . . . 3:9 

2. The Anglo-Saxon replaces the Celtic in the Anglo- 

Saxon States : an Objection based on this fact con- 
sidered 323 

3. The Comparative freedom from Celtic of the earliest 

Anglo-Saxon literature considered and accounted for . 32S 

Section II. — Celtic elements in the English language . . • 3]3 

1. Celtic elements in the English language derived directly 

from the Celtic tongues, and subsequent to the Anglo- 
Saxon Conquest . . . . . . . . 341 

The Criteria used, (1) (2) (3) j [8 

(1.) Celtic words in the modern English Dictionary . ib. 

(2.) Celtic words in the living dialects of England . . 364 

(3) Celtic words once found in the written English, but now 

wholly discontinued 372 

Remarks: 1. The vernacular of England during the " Semi- 
Saxon " period must have contained a large 
infusion of Celtic ...... 37S 

2. A large proportion of the British Celtic of the 

Modern Dictionary was assimilated since 

the Semi-Saxon period ..... ib. 

3. A large proportion of the British Celtic of all 

three classes belongs to the Cymric branch 379 

4. Elements of foreign origin in the Welsh 

language ....... 3S0 

5. Welsh words often improperly derived from 

Latin, &c 3^3 

2. Celtic Elements in the English language derived 

immediately from Latin 384 

3. Celtic Elements in the English language derived through 

the Teutonic tongues, or through Norman French . 387 

4. Concluding Remarks on the English language . . 397 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EVIDENCE OF TOPOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL NAMES. 

Section I. — The enduring nature of Local Names .... 400 
Section II. — The various uses cf Local Names .... 403 



6 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Page 

Section III. — The Ethnological Value of the Celtic Local Names 
of England ........... 405 

1. The Celtic local names of England as evidence of Celtic 

Settlement ib. 

(a.) Celtic names of Mountains and Hills, omitting 

Scotland and Wales 406 

(b.) Celtic names of Rivers and Streams in Britain, 

omitting Wales and Scotland .... 408 

(c.) Celtic names of Valleys, Dales, &c, in England, 

omitting Wales and Scotland .... 411 

(<f.) Cities, or fortresses, towns, homesteads, in Eng- 
land, bearing Celtic names .... 412 

2. Celtic local names as evidence of Admixture of Race . 41C 

Section IV. — English Proper Names and Surnames . . . 424 

1. Surnames, a modern invention in England . . . ib. 

2. The value of English Surnames as proofs of inter- 

mixture 427 

3. The disuse in modern times of both Celtic and Saxon 

Names .......... 42S 

4. Recent Celtic Names ....... 430 

5. Teutonic names of Persons and Places in Wales . . 432 



CHAPTER IV. 

Evidence of the Influence of the Ancient British Race 
upon the Anglo-Saxons suppmf.d by the Development of 
early English Law 44; 



CHAPTER V. 

The Evidence supplied by the Physical, Mental, and 
Moral Qualities of the English 451 

Section I. — Physical Characteristics of the English People . . 452 

1. Complexion, or hair colour ...... 455 

2. The form of the Cranium . , . . . .47: 

Section II.— Mental and Moral Characteristics cf the English 

People 47 ,i 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Recapitulation 49S 

Conclusion . 503 

Appendix A : — 

Welsh words derived from the Latin and other languages . 515 

Appendix B : — 

Cymric words sometimes derived from Latin, &c, but which 
seem to proceed from Aryan etymons which have become 
the common property of many European languages, Classic, 
Celtic, and Teutonic ........ 53S 

Appendix C: — 

Schools and Learning among the Celts 546 

Index 551 



NOTE OX AUTHORITIES AND OTHER WORKS 
CONSULTED. 

The succeeding list of Authors is furnished for the benefit of students 
in British Ethnology, and embraces such works only as bear more or 
less directly upon the general subject and collateral matters, and are 
most easily accessible. Its perusal will at once shew that researches 
into Ethnology and the nearly-related subjects of comparative Philology 
and Physiology are of modern date, and that the Germans have far 
outstripped the English in them all. This remark applies with special 
emphasis to the study of the Celtic languages and race — subjects 
which, on many accounts, might be expected to prove of interest to 
English enquirers. 



ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES AND OTHER WORKS 
CONSULTED. 



Adelung, J. C. und Vater: Mith- 
ridatcs ; oder Allgemcinc Spra- 
chcnkundc. 4 vols. Berlin, 1806- 
1817. 

Akerman, J. Y. : Ancient Coins of 
Cities and Princes. Lond. 1841. 

Ammiani Marcell. : in Monument a 
Hist. Brit. Lond. 1848. 

Anglo - Saxon Chronicle : in 
Monumenta Hist. Brit. Lond. 
1848. 

Arndt, C. G. von : Weber den 
Ursprung &c, der Europiiischcn 
Sprachen. Frankft. 1818. 

Arnold, Dr. T. : Hist, of Rome. 
3 vols. Lond. 

Arnold, Dr. T. : Lectures on 
Modem History. Lond. 1843. 

Barth, C. Karl: Ueber die 
Druiden der Kelten. Erlangen, 
1826. 

Beddoe, J., M.D. : on Permanence 
of Anthrop. Types. Memoirs of 
Anthrop. Soc. of Lond. 1865. 
On Head Forms of West of Eng- 
land. On Prevalence of Dark Hair 
in England. Anthrop. Rev. 
1865-6. 

Betiiam, Sir W. : Etruria Celtica. 
2 vols. 8vo. Dublin, 1842. 

Betham, Sir W. : The Gael and 
Cymbri. 8vo. Dublin, 1N34. 



Bender, Dr. J. : Die Deutschcn 
Ortsnamen. 8vo. Siegen, 1846. 

Blackstone : Commentt. on Laws 
of Engl., by Stephens. 4 vols. 
1863. 

Blumenbach, J. Fried. : Decades 
Craniorum. Gbttingen, 1828. 

Bopp, Dr. Franc. : Glossarium 
Coiuparativum Linguae Sanscritac. 
Ed. Tertia. Berol. 1867. 

Bosworth, Dr. J., F.R.S. : Dic- 
tionary of Anglo-Saxon Lang. 
8vo. Lond. 1848. 

Bosworth, Dr. J. : Origin of 
English, Germanic, &c, Lan- 
guages. 8vo. Lond. 1848. 

Brandes, K. : Das Ethnograph. 
Vcrhdlt. der Kelten und Ger- 
manen. Leipzig, 1858. 

Buckle, H.T. : History of Civiliza- 
tion in England. 2 vols. Svo. 
Lond. 1857. 

Bunsen, Baron C. C. Jos., D.D., 
D. Ph., cmc. : Philosophy of His- 
tory. Lond. 1850. 

Bunsen, Baron C. C. Jos., D.D., 
D. Ph. &c. : Results of Recent 
Egyptian Researches in reference to 
Ethnology. Rep. of British 
Association, 1847. 

C.i.sakis, Jul. : Opera Omnia; 
Cvmmentarii. Ed. Var. 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Cambro-Briton. 3 vols. Svo. 

Lond. 1819-1822. 
Camden, W. : Britannia. Gough's 

Ed. 4 vols. fol. Lond. 1806. 
Chalmers, G. : Caledonia. 3 vols. 

4to. Lond. 1810, &c. 
Camden Society : The Publications 
of, but chiefly A Dialogue between 
the Soul and the Body. Political 

Songs; Temp. Henry III. and 

Edward I. Edited by T.Wright, 

M.A. 
Chaucer, Geoff. : Poetical Works. 

Ed. by Bell. 8 vols. Lond. 1856. 
Coleridge, Herbert : Dictionary 

of Oldest Words in the English 

Language. Lond. 1863. 
Constantius, Presbytee : Life of 

St. Gernianus, in " Acta Sanc- 
torum."' Vol. vii. 
Courson, Aurel. de : Histoire des 

Peuplcs Bretons. 2 vols. Paris. 
Crania Britannica: by Dr. B. 

Davis, and Dr. J. Thurman. 

Lond. 1S56-65. 
Darwin, C : Origin of Species. 

Svo. Lond. 1S60. 
Davies, Ed.: Celtic Researches, &c. 

Svo. Lond. 1S04. 
Davies, Rev. J.: Races of Lan- 
cashire, &c, Trans. Phil. Soc. 

Lond. 1855. 
De Belloql'et, Roget : Etln: 

Gauloise, &c. Svo. Paris, 1858. 
Dictionary of Creek and Roman 

Antiquities. By Dr. Smith. 

2nd edition. Lond. 184S. 
Dictionary of Creel: and Roman 

Biogra'pliy and Mythol. By Dr. 

Smith. 3 vols. Lond. 1S49, &c. 
Diefenbacii, Dr. LoREKZ: Celtiea, 

P. I. et II. 2 vols. Svo. Stutt- 
gart, 1850, &c. 
Diefenbacii, Dr. Lorenz: Ori- 

gines Europaa. 8vo. Frank- 

tort-a-M. 1861. 
Die/, Friederich: Etymol 

Dii tionary of the Roman 



guages. Transl. by S. C.Donkin, 

B.A., London. 1864. 
Diodorus Sic. : in Monument. 

Hist. Brit. Rolls Office. Lond. 

1848. 
Dion Cassius : in Monument. Hist. 

Brit. Rolls Office. Lond. 1848. 
Domesday Book: Ed. by Sir H. 

Ellis. 4 vols. fol. Lond. 17S3- 

1S16. 
Donaldson, Dr. J. W. : Varro- 

uianus. Svo. Lond. 1852. 
Donaldson, Dr. J. W. : On English 

Ethnography. Camb. Essavs, 

1851. 
Dosparth • Edeyrn Davod Aur : 

Ed. Rev. J. Williams Ab. Irhel. 

Llandovery, 1856. 
Di'cange, C. Dufr. : Glossarium 

Med. et Inf. Latinitatis. 7. vols. 

Paris, 1840, &c. 
Ebel, Dr. Hermann : Celtic Studies. 

By Prof. W. K. Sullivan, Ph. D. 

Lond. 1S63. 
Edwards, Mons.W. F. : Des Cha- 
racters Physiologiques,&c. Paris. 

1829. 
Encyclopedia Britann. : Sth ed. 

Various Articles. 
Ellis, George : Early Metrical 

Romances. 3 vols. Svo. Lond. 

1S05-181S, &c. 
Ersch lnd Gruber: Allegemeine 

Encyklopcsdie, &c. 122 vols. 

Leipzic. 
Esquiros Alphonse : UAngleterre 

et hi Vie Anglaise. Paris, 1859. 
Evans, John, F.R.S., F.G.S.. 

E.S.A. : The Coins of the Ancient 

Britons. Svo. Lond. 1S64. 
Ewai.d Heinrich Von: Gesc) 

des Volkes Israel. 3 vols. Gottin- 

gen, 1S43. 

Ferguson, Rob.: The Northmen in 

Cumberland, &c. Lond. 1S56. 

Forstemann, E. : Die Deutschen 

Ortsnamen. Nordhausen, 1 
Garnett, Rev. Rich., M.A. : Philo- 



ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES, ETC., CONSULTED. 



i r 



logical Essays. 8vo. Lond. 

1859. 
Gildas: Hist, in Momnnenta Hist. 

Brit. Lond. 1848. 
Gibbon, Edw. : Decline and Fall of 

Rom. Emp. 8 vols. Lond. 1838. 
Gohineau, Comte A. de. : Stir 

VInegalite rfes Races Humaines. 

Paris, 1850. 
Grimm, Jacob: Deutsche Grammatik. 

4 vols. Gottingen, 1822, &c. 
Guest, Dr. E. : On English 

Rhythms. Lond. 1S50. 
Guest, Dr. E. : On Gentile Names. 

Phil. Proceedings, vol. 1. 
Hardy, Sir T. Duffus: Dcscript. 

Catalogue of Materials relating to 

the History of Great Britain, &c. 

Rolls' Office. Lond. 1862-5. 
Halliwell, J. O. : Dictionary of 

Archaic and Prov. Words. 2 vols. 

Lond. 1S60. 
Hall am, Henry: State of Europe 

during Middle Ages. 3 vols. Lond. 

1829. 
Havelok the Dane. Ed. by Sir F. 

Madden, for Roxburgh Club. 

Hawkins, Ed. : Silver Coins of 
England. Lond. 1841. 

Herodotus: Hist. Ed. Bekkcr, 

1S45, and in Mon. Hist. Brit. 
Holtzmann, Adolf: KelUn und 

Germanen. 4to. Stuttgart. 1855. 
Hoveden, Roger de : Ex Scrip- 
tor, post Bedam. By Saville. 

'591- 
Humboldt, W. Von : Priifung der 

Untersuch, &c. Berlin, 1821. 
HUXLEY, Prof. T. II. : Elements of 

Compar. Anatomy. Lond. 1864. 
HUXLEY, Prof.T. H. : Critiques and 

Addresses. London, 1873. 
lob MSS., The : Pub. by Welsh 

MSS. Society. Lond. 1848. 
Kemble, J. M. : Codex Diplo- 

maticus Mvi Saxon. 5 vols. 

Lond. 1845. 



Kemble, J. M. : The Saxons in 

England. 2 vols. Lond. 1S49. 

Kingsley, Rev. C. : The Roman 

and the Teuton. 8vo. Lond. 1864- 
King Alysaunder. In Weber's 

Romances. Vol. 1. 
Knox, Dr. Rob. : The Races of Men. 

8vo. Lond. 1862. 
Laing, S., and Huxley, Prof. T. H. : 

Pre-historic Remains of Caithness. 

Lond. 1866. 
Lappenberg, J. M. : Hist, of Eng. 

under Anglo-Sax. Kings. 2 vols. 

8vo. Lond. 1845. 
Lappenberg, J. M. : Hist, of Eng. 

under Anglo-Norman Kings. 8vo. 

Lond. 1854. 
Latham, Dr. R. G. : The English 

Language. 4th Ed. Lond. 1855. 
Latham, Dr. R. G. : Ethnology of 

Brit. Islands. 8vo. Lond. 1852. 
Latham, Dr. R. G. : The Nation- 
alities of Europe. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Lond. 1863. 
Latham, Dr. R. G. : The German ia 

of Tacitus, with Dissertt. Lond. 

1851. 
Latham, Dr. R. G. : Prichard's- 

Celtic Nations, with supp. chap- 
ters. Lond. 1857. 
Latham, Dr. R. G. : The Nat. Hist- 

of the Varieties of Man. Svo. 

Lond. 1850. 
Leges Wallicaz Hoeli Bojii, &c. Ed. 

Wotton. Fol. Lond. 1730. 
Leges Wallica:. The Ancient Laics 

and Institutes of Wales. Ed.. 

Aneurin Owen, published by the 

Record Commission. 1 vol. fol. 

Lond. 1861. 
Leo, Dr. Heinrich : Vorlesungen 

iiber die GescJiichte des Deutschen 

Yolkcs und Retches'. 3 vols. 8vo. 

Halle, 1854-61. 
Leo, Dr. Heinrich: Fericngc- 

scliriften : Ueber Deutschen und 

Keltischen. Halle, 1847- 1852. 
Leo. Dr. Heinrich: Wahle und 



12 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Deutsche. (Xuhn's Zeitschrift.) 
1853- 

Lewis, Sir Geo. C. : on the Romance 
Languages. 8vo. Lond. 1862. 

Lhwyd, Ed.: Archceologia Bri- 
tannica. Fol. Oxford, 1707. 

Lingard, Dr. J. : Hist, of the Anglo- 
Saxon Church. 2 vols. 8vo. 
2nd. Ed. Lond. 1845. 

Lobineau, M. : Histoire dc Bretagnc. 
8vo. Paris. 

JLyell, Sir Charles : Elements of 
Geology. 6th Ed., 8vo. Lond. 
1865. 

Lyell, Sir Charles : On the Anti- 
quity of Man. 8vo. Lond. 1863. 

Mackintosh, Rev. J. : Hist, of Eng- 
land. 3 vols. i2mo. Lond. 1830. 

Matthew Paris : English History, 
by Giles. 3 vols. Lond. 1852. 

Marsh, G. P. : Origin and Jlistory 
of English Language. 8vo. Lond. 
1862. 

Meyer, Dr. C. : On the Study of 
Celtic Languages. Rep. of Brit. 
Assoc. 1847. 

Monumcnta Historica Britannica : 
Published by command of Her 
Majesty. Ed. by H. Petrie and 
J. Sharp. Introd. and Pref. by 
G. D. Hardy, Esq. 1 vol. fol. 
Lond. 1848. Contains, besides 
Extracts from Classical Writers: 
Bed* Ven. Historia Ecclesiastica ; 
et Chronicon. Gildae Sapientis 
de Excidio Britannia. Roman 
Inscriptions in Britain. British 
Coins. The Anglo-Saxon Chro- 
nicle (in A.-Sax.j Asserii Mene- 
ven. Rer.-Gest. Alfredi Magni. 
Ethchverdi Clironieorum, lib. 
ijuatuor. Elorentii Wigorn. 
Chronicon. Simeonis Dunelm. 
Historia, &C. Hcnrici Huntcn- 
dunensis Historia. L' Estorit ties 
Engles, solum la Trans. <l. Gaimar. 
Aninilcs Cambria, ab a.d. circ. 
444, usque ad 1066. Brut y 
Tywysogion (Chronicle of Princes 
of Wales) &c, &c, &c. 



Miller, Max Prof.: Lectures on 
the Science of Language. Lond. 
1862. 

Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales. 3 
vols. 8vo. Lond. 1801-7. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor : 
Life of Julius Cazsar. Vols. i. ii. 
8vo. Lond. 1863-1866. 

Niebuhr, B. G. : Lectures on An- 
cient Ethnography and Geography. 
Lond. 1853. 

Xiebuhr, B. G. : The Hist, of Rome. 
Translated by Hare and Thirl- 
wall. 1847-51. 

Palgrave, Sir Francis : History 
of Normandy and Engl. 2 vols. 
Lond. 1S51-7. 

Palgrave, Sir Francis : Hist, of 
English Commonwealth. 2 vols., 
4to. Lond. 1832. 

Penny Cyclopedia (Various Ar- 
ticles). 

Percy, Bishop : Reliqucs of Ancient 
English Poetry. 3 vols. 8vo. 
Edinburgh, 1858. 

Percy Society : The various Pub- 
lications of, but chiefly The Owl 
and Nightingale. Ed. by T. 
Wright, M.A. The Life and 
Martyrdom of Thomas Beket. 
Ed. by Mr. Black. 

Pickering, Dr. C. : The Races 1 ( 
Man. Ed. Dr. J. C. Hall. 
Lond. 1850. 

Pouchet, Georges : .Plurality des 
Races Humaines. Paris, 1S64. 

Philological Society: Transac- 
tions and Proceed, of. 1S45- 
1S63. 

Pictorial History of England. New- 
Ed. by Chambers. 7 vols. roy. 
Svo. Edinburgh. 1855, &c. 

Piers Ploughman, Vision of; Creed 
of. Lond. 1832. 

Population Returns, Census of 1S61, 
&c. 

Posit. Rev. BEALE : Brii 
Researches. 8vo. Lond. 1853. 



ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES, ETC., CONSULTED. 



Pott, Dr. Aug. Fried. : Die Per- 

sonennamen, Sec. Svo. Leipzig, 

1S53. 
Pott, Dr. Aug. Fried.: Indo- 

Germanischer Sprachstamm. In 

Ersch und Gruber's Encyklop. 

Vol. xviii. 
Prichard, Dr. J.C. : Physical Hist. 

of Mankind. 4 vols. Svo. Lond. 

1841-47. 
Prichard, Dr. J.C: The Eastern 

Origin of the Celtic Nations. Ed. 

Latham. Svo. Lond. 1857. 
Prichard, Dr. J. C. : The Natural 

Hist, of Man. 8vo. Lond. 1843. 
PtoleMjEI, Cl. : Geographia. In 

Monumenta Hist. Brit. 
Pughe, Dr. W. O. : Dictionary of 

the Welsh Language. Second 

Edition. Denbigh, 1832. 
Quatrefages, A. de : Unite dc 

I'Espcce Humaine. Paris, 1861. 
Kask, E. C. : Anglo-Saxon Gram- 
mar. Tr. by Thorpe. Lond. 

1865. 
Kenan, Ernest : De V Origins du 

Langage. 8vo. Paris, 1858. 
Reports of Commissioners on Public- 
Records. Lond. var. dates. 
Pees, Rev. W. J. : Lives of Cam- 

hro-British Saints. Landovery, 

1853. 
Retzius, Anders : Ethnologische 

Schriften. Stockholm, 1864. 
Revue Celtiquc : Ed. by M. Gaidoz, 

Paris, 1870-74. 
Robertson, E. W. : Scotland and 

her Early Kings. 2 vols. Svo. 

Edinburgh, 1862. 
Schleicher, A. : Die Sprachen 

Europas. 8vo. Bonn, 1850. 

Sismondi, J. C. L. S. de: Hist, de 

la Chute de V Empire Romain, ct 
du Declindela Civilisation. Paris, 
S835. 
SOUVESTRE, Emile: Les Derniers 
Bretons. 2 vols, post Svo. Paris, 
1858. 



Strabonis: Geographia, in Monu- 
ment. Hist. Britannica. 

Suetonii C. Tranquill : Vita, 
Ibid. 

Taciti, C. Corn. : Opera Omnia. 
Ed. Bekkeri, &c 2 vols. Leip- 
zig, 1831. 

Taylor, Rev. Is., M.A. : Words 
and Places. Lond. 1864. 

Thackeray, Rev. F., A.M., Re- 
searches into State of Ancient 
Britain. 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 
1843. 

Thierry, Amadee : Histoire des 
Gaulois. 3 vols. Svo. Paris, 
1844. 

Thierry, Augustin : Hist, de la 
Conquete de V Angleterre par les 
Normands. Paris, 1825. Do. 
in Bohn's Libr. 1856. 

Thirlwall, Dr. Connop : History 
of Greece. 8 vols. 8vo. Lond. 
1845. 

Thorpe, Bent. : Northern Mytho- 
logy. 3 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1851. 

Thurnam, Dr. J.: On Ancient 
British and Gaulish Skulls. In 
Memoirs of Anthropol. Society. 
Lond. 1865. 

Trench, Archbp. : On the Study 
of Words. Lond. 1853. 

Turner, Sharon : The Hist, of the 
Anglo-Saxons. 3 vols. Lond. 
1828. 

Types of Mankind: by Nott and 
Gliddon, Philadelphia, 1854. 

Villemarqui':, Vicomte H. Her- 
sart de la : Pocmes des Bar des 
Bretons du VI. Siccle. Paris et 
Rennes, 1850. 8vo. 

Villemarqui':, Vicomte H. Her- 
sart de la : La Legende Celtiquc 
en Irlande, en Cambric, et en Bre- 
tagne, Sec. i2mo. St. Brieux, 
1859. 

Villemarqui', Vicomte H. Her- 
SAK'rdela: Barzaz-Breiz : Chants 
populaires de la Bretagne. Svo. 
Paris, 1839. 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Vocabularies, a Volume of : Vol. r., 
part of a " Library of National 
Antiquities." Published under 
the direction of J. Mayer, Esq., 
F.S.A., &c, of Liverpool. Ed. 
by Thos. Wright, M.A. 1S57. 

Welsh-English Dictionaries: Va- 
rious. 

Whitaker, Dr. J.: History of 
Manchester. 2 vols. 4to. Lond. 
1775- 

"Whitaker, T. D. : History <f 
Whalley. Fol. Lond. 1818. 

Whitaker, T. D. : History, &c, of 
Craven. 4to. 1S05. 

Williams, Ven. Archd. : Essays 
on Various Subjects. Lond. 1858. 

Williams, Rev. Rob., M.A. : Lexi- 
con Cornu-Dritannicum. 1 vol. 
4to. Llandovery, 1S65. 

Wilson, Dr. Daniel : Prehistoric 
Annals of Scotland. Second Edi- 
tion. 2 vols. Lond. 1863. 



Wilson, Dr. Daniel: Physical 
Char, of Celts. "Canadian Jour- 
nal," Nov. 1864. 

Windisch, Ernst: Ueber Pick's 
Vergleich. Wdfterbuch d. Indo- 
German. Sprach. in Zeitschr. 
fur. vgl. sprachf. xxi. 5. 

Worsaae, J. J. A.: The Danes and 
Norwegians in England, &c. 
Lond. 1852. 

Worsaae, J. J. A., Primeval Anti- 
quities of Denmark. Lond. 1849. 

Wright, Thos., M.A. : Wander- 
ings of an Antiquary, &c. Lond. 
1854. 

Wright, Thos., M.A. : The Cell, 
the Roman, and the Saxon. 
Lond. 1861. 

Zeuss, I. C. : Grammatica Celtica. 
2 vols. Svo. 2nd Ed. by Ebel. 
Berlin, 1S71. 

Zeuss, J. C. : Die Deutschen und 
die Nachbarstamme. 8vo. Miin- 
chen, 1837. 




CORRIGENDA. 



Page 23, line 4, for " avroxOoves," read avroxdoves. 

„ 37, notes at foot, add to each cap. 1. 

,, 38, line 13, for "Matro»n," read Matiw/a. 

,, 6i, „ 4 from bottom, for " v. 10 " read v. 12. 

„ 65, ,, 6 ,, for "at" read ad. 

„ 65, last line, after " money " add note, De Bell. Gall. v. 12. 

,, 71, line 3 from bottom, for " iv. 13 " read vi. 14. 

„ 87, „ 8 „ for " B.C. 56 " read B.C. 54. 

,, 91, „ 4 „ for " Nimius " read Nimis. 

,, 92, „ I ,, for " A.D. 137 " read A.D. 337. 

„ ,, „ 13, after " sons " read of. 

„ 105, note 1, after "invisi," read De Excid. Brit. 23. 

)> XI 7i )> 3, for " successioni " read successione. 

„ 145, line 3 from top, for " commeatum " read commeatuum. 

,, 177, ,, 12 „ ,, for "Reguum " read Regnum. 

„ 1S8, ,, 6 ,, bottom, for " principium " read principum. 

„ 381, ,, 4 „ „ for " Geo." read Gee. 

., 44S, „ 5 ,, ., for '-Wootton's " read Wotton's. 



Part I. 
Intro&tirtot'g. 










7%£ Pedigree of the English People \ 



CHAPTER I. 
National Origin. 

section I. 
The Composite Character of Nations. 




jHOUGHTFUL students of ethnology, even at a 
somewhat early stage in their researches, arrive 
at the conviction that purity of national descent — 
such purity as would entitle any one nation to pronounce 
itself entirely distinct in blood from other nations — is a 
thing impossible. The intermixture of different sections of 
mankind has been more like that of the waves of the sea 
than of the river of snow-water passing through the Swiss 
lake. The race has been so unsettled on the face of the 
globe — its migrations have been so prolonged and nume- 
rous ; admixture, through amity, interest, force of conquest, 
necessity, has in every country so much prevailed — that 
few nations, even the quiescent races of oriental climes, 
can predicate of themselves that they belong simply and 

c 2 



20 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

exclusively to this variety or that, or can trace their lineage 
to a single tribe or family. 

Many persons may not readily acquiesce in the conclusion 
that, by an ordination of Providence, the development of 
the higher qualities of the race has been made dependent 
upon this intermixture of blood. But if facts which lie on 
the field of history do not fully and beyond contradiction 
justify such an hypothesis, they at least go far to establish 
its probable truth. 

Peoples, in proportion as they have been quiescent, 
isolated, suspicious of foreign customs and alliances, have 
in the course of ages given signs of exhaustion, and at 
length paid the penalty of over-conservatism by decay and 
extinction. On the other hand, the mightiest nations have 
been those whose origin is traceable to mixed sources. 
That combination of noble qualities which culminates 
in national greatness, is found at the focal point where 
the varying but still harmonizing attributes of different 
stocks of the race meet and blend. There seems to be 
a tendency in prolonged isolation to leave in bolder 
relief some one or some few of the great qualities of a 
people, and it is by no means improbable that by a 
beneficent law of the universe such idiosyncracies are 
made to disappear, or at least recede, before less marked 
but more solid qualities. In the Celt we have the fervid 
impulse ; in the Teuton, patient perseverance : the com- 
bination of the two forms a completer, stronger personality 
than either by itself. Aptness to luxuriate in the ideal, and 
power to embody the ideal in actual form — philosophical 
meditativeness and practical industry — are oftener found 
apart than in combination. In China, India, Japan, they 
are not wedded together. But they are found more or less 
associated among the more composite peoples of Greece, 
Rome, Germany, France, England, America. The Jews, 



ORIGIN OF ANCIENT NATIONS OBSCURE. 2 1 

the most unmixed people, perhaps, in the civilized world, 
seem in this, as in other things, to form a strange exception 
to a general rule. Though deprived of empire, of political 
unity, of country, they still maintain a vitality and display 
at times an intellectual energy and practical talent truly 
marvellous. 

But there is one consideration which to some extent 
accounts for this seeming mystery. The Jews, though un- 
mixed, are not properly isolated. They mingle in the daily 
life and imbibe the habits and modes of thought of all 
nations. While fortified by a sense of national unity which 
no other people enjoy, their intellectual treasury is enriched 
by the literature of the whole civilized world. An intel- 
lectual renovation proceeding from such various sources, 
and the physical influences of the various climates of the 
globe, may be sufficient to account for the persistent vigour 
of the Jewish race, while they also supply a clue to some 
of its manifest defects. 

SECTION II. 

The Origin of the Aboriginal British Population Obscure — 
The Analogy of other Early Nations. 

The ethnological tree of England spreads its deeply im- 
bedded roots in forms so tangled and directions so diverse 
as sorely to perplex the student who would understand the 
whole history of its growth. The labours of the historian 
and ethnologist are much of a kind with those of the 
geologist, who has to search out and classify the formations 
of many thousand ages. The latter finds the strata up- 
heaved, dislocated, intermixed, presenting sudden faults 
which break off the thread of evidence, and bringing strange 
materials from regions wholly unknown, transported by 
forces enormously surpassing any subject to/ modern ex- 



22 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

perience. The historian, standing over the field of ancient 
British history, finds himself in similar plight. He sees 
before him an unwieldy chaos which he wishes to reduce to 
some order. Whence came those numerous and busy tribes 
faintly pictured in the pages of Avienus, 1 Diodorus, 2 
Strabo, 3 Caesar, 4 Tacitus, 5 and in the Welsh Triads ? What 
was the age of their arrival ? Which was the first comer, 
if their arrival was in succession r And which continued 
to bear the generic designation of the stock, if their arrival 
was simultaneous ? Assuming, as we must at last assume, 
that they all belonged to what modern ethnologists call the 
great Indo-European family, and to the Celtic branch of 
that family, whence the wide varieties of their speech, and 
the designations whereby in Ireland, Caledonia, and Wales, 
they have continued to be known ? 

The same or a similar difficulty besets the ethnologist's 
path, proceed whither he may in the field of ancient history. 
Thucydides tells us that Hellas was at first the abode of 
many tribes ; that these tribes were migratory ; that the 
stronger pressed upon and dispossessed the weaker, forcing 
them into the wilder and remoter parts ; that thus the 
fairer and more fertile regions, such as Thessaly, Bceotia, 
and most of the Peloponnesus became the theatres of 
contention, and that Attica, by reason of its poverty, 
enjoyed greater repose, and thereby grew in strength and 
importance. 6 But beyond these general facts handed down 
by tradition from primeval times, Thucydides can give us 
but little information. When he begins to assign to 
separate tribes their distinct origin, he at once falls back 
upon the aid of myth and fable, the story of the Trojan 
war, of Hellen the son of Deucalion, Minos, &c. 7 The 

1 Ova Maritima, vers. 94 ft seq. '- Lib. v. :i Lib. iii. 

1 De Bell. Gall., passim. B Opera, passim. 

r ' Thucyd. i. 2, 3. : Ibid i. 3, 4. 



ORIGIN OF ANCIENT NATIONS OBSCURE. 2$ 

Athenians, all account of their ancestry failing them, 
ingeniously made profit out of the disadvantage, and 
boasted that they were descendants of neither this man 
nor that, but ol avroxOoves, veritable sons of the soil. 1 

This idea was afterwards, along with many others, 
borrowed by the Romans. Hence their indigence aborigines. 
Horace speaks of the human race issuing out of the earth — 
" Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris " — showing that 
the ancients were not at least inferior to the framers of the 
extremest " development " doctrine of modern times ; 
only the old Greeks and Romans chose to be considered 
children direct of "mother earth," rather than those of 
apes — a pride of ancestry which, though not ambitious, is 
on the whole worthy of commendation. 

An impenetrable veil hangs over the progenitors of the 
Romans, search for them from what quarter we may. This 
people, therefore, failing a better account of their own 
origin, fell back upon the confused and contradictory 
legend of iEneas and Ascanius conducting, after the fall 
■of Troy, the Trojans into Latium. The Pelasgi, it is likely 
enough, formed the generic stock whence proceeded the 
various tribes of Italy, the Sabines, Tyrrhenians, Siculians, 
Prisci, Sacrani, Umbri, Liguri ; and these, though brethren 
in blood, indulged in hostile incursions upon each other, as 
the ancient Britons also did, from motives of jealousy and 
interest. But of the degrees of their kinship wc know- 
little ; and still less of the consanguinity of the Pelasgi to 
the old Etruscans, the probable progenitors of the different 
tribes of Hellas. 2 The story of Hercules arriving in Latium 
and slaying the giant Cacus, and the whole account of 
Romulus and Remus, betray a people as helplessly de- 



1 Herodotus i, 171. 
2 See Thirlwall's Hist, of Greece, i. 2. Svo. ed. 



24 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

pendent on fable as were the old Cymr'y in their legends of 
Hit Gadarn and Pry dam ap Aedd Mawr. 

Again, we possess but the most shadowy knowledge of 
the tribes which wandered up and down the plains of India 
before they coalesced into the mighty Hindoo race ; or of 
the manner in which the same or related tribes founded the 
other great empires of the East, of which China forms the 
chief. How the hordes of the North strove together before 
joining their rude forces to overwhelm the Western 
Empire ; or how many elements fused with the Franks to 
found the great empire of Charlemagne, it is easier to 
imagine than specify. The absence of historic records 
is cause of all the uncertainty. The mystery which hangs 
about the early inhabitants of Britain is the product of the 
same cause. They were here, in all probability, long before 
the art of writing was known in Europe, and certainly 
long before the art of writing history was known ; and 
even of the things their wise and learned men did commit 
to writing after the science of history had been taught 
them by the Romans, what quantities have been lost it is 
now impossible to tell. 






25 



CHAPTER II. 

The Ancient Britons. — Their Ethnological 
Afflnities. — Their State of Culture. 

It will be useful, preliminarily to entering upon the argu- 
ment of this essay, to cast a glance at the ethnological 
unity and the culture of the various tribes and confederacies 
of tribes known by the generic term " Ancient Britons." 
We shall thus virtually supply an answer to two pertinent 
questions : — First : Were all the early inhabitants of 
Britain substantially of the Celtic race, and of near kin- 
ship r Secondly : Were they in culture, power, and general 
political development such as to be fitted, while beaten in 
the field, to form a persistent and vital element in the 
future population of the country ? 

SECTION I. 

Restilts of Modern Ethnological Research respecting the early 
Inhabitants of the British Isles. 

We are to show in the course of this inquiry how far the 
English nation has, in the process of crystallizing into 
form, gathered into its body elements from among the 
Ancient British race. In order to this we must determine 
at the outset the meaning of the term " Ancient Britons," 
either eliminating from the mass some of the " nations " 
found among the early inhabitants of these islands, or 



26 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

supporting by reliable evidence the hypothesis that all the 
dwellers in Britain and Ireland when Caesar arrived were, 
under different names, substantially one people. The latter 
alternative shall be our task. 

In maintaining this hypothesis, we shall not attempt 
ignoring the fact that Teutonic settlements had been made 
on our eastern, and north and south-eastern shores prior to 
Roman times. Whither did not the pirates and free- 
booters of the Elbe district and Scandinavia penetrate ? 
Still, the aborigines of Britain were a Celtic people, and 
our conclusion shall be, that in so far as aboriginal blood 
has been absorbed in the rearing up of the great community 
now called the English Nation, so far has the English nation 
been derived from the Ancient Britons. The hypothesis 
maintained by some searchers into the pre-historic past 
that a pre-Celtic wave of population passed over Britain is 
of no importance here. Again, even though Teutonic 
blood should be accounted alien to the Celtic, and be 
allowed in some measure to have mixed with it in Britain 
in the early ages, still this admixture is demonstrably so 
light, as in no sense materially to affect the soundness of 
our conclusion. The kinship of Celts and Teutons, however, 
and their departure at no very remote period from a com- 
mon centre, is a question of great interest, and must be 
taken account of, here and there, during the progress of 
our investigations. 

(a). Preliminary Ethnological Data. 

We are of the opinion that the human race is one. This 
ground is taken not merely on the faith of Scripture, but 
-also as the demonstration of science. 1 It is too dogmatic 

1 It is hardly necessary to observe that the most eminent naturalists 
.agree in this opinion, as ex. gr. Prichard, Cuvier, Blumenbach, 
Humboldt, Pickering, Owen, Latham, De Quatrefages. 



ETHNOLOGICAL DATA. 27 

and too little " scientific," to declare that the nations of the 
earth, which in mental, moral, and physical constitution 
possess so much in common, have sprung from different 
centres and at different epochs. As surely as that " one 
touch of nature makes the whole world kin," so surely 
does the universal kinship everywhere develop the same 
touches of nature. 

Amcng the arguments for the unity of the race, as well 
as for the near consanguinity of some of its branches, that 
of language is allowed to be one of the most interesting and 
conclusive. The common possession of the same terms as 
signs of the same ideas by nations inhabiting widely remote 
regions, argues relationship ; and the more ample the 
common property, the nearer, presumably, the kinship. 
A comparison of the various languages spoken in Britain, 
Ireland, and Gaul in the time of Ca3sar, in so far as their 
elements are now ascertainable, leads infallibly to the 
conclusion that the tribes and " nations " which spoke 
them, though torn asunder by dissension, and widely sepa- 
rated by locality, constituted substantially but one people. 

Not only is the human race, divided by modern scientific 
classification into the three varieties — the Mongolian, 
Negro, and European 1 — proved by its modes of speech to 
have an organic unity, but the Indo-European class of 
languages, embracing as chief branches the Sanscrit and 
the Classic tongues, contains abundance of materials in 
favour of the comparatively recent origin of man on the 
earth — recent, we mean, when compared with immeasurable 
geological periods. Bunsen, one of the most adventurous 
and untrammelled thinkers of our age, has shown that the 
Egyptian antiquities and language, and other languages, 

1 See Latham's Varieties of Man, p. 13 et scq. Cuvier's designations 
are Mongolian, Ethiopian, and Caucasian. Latham prefers the terms 
Mongolida?, At'.antidae, and Japetida:. 



28 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

furnish evidence that all the nations, which from the dawn 
of history to the present time have been the pioneers of 
civilization in Africa, Asia, and Europe, must have had 
one beginning. 1 It has taken a long time, doubtless, to 
separate the one race into sections so unlike ; and again 
long periods to elaborate the subdivisions of each. But 
facts carefully compared leave no room to doubt the nature 
of the process. 

(b.) The remote Relation of Celts and Teutons. 

The family of languages termed Indo-European embraces 
the Sanscrit, Iranian, Hellenic, Romanic, Slavonic, Teutonic 
and Celtic. A family likeness exists in all these. As to 
the Teutonic and Celtic, it may be argued that the points of 
analogy between them are few. In one sense they are few ; 
in another, very numerous. They are amply sufficient to 
establish a proof of relationship. 2 In a subsequent chapter 
on Philology, many of these points of analogy are brought 
to view. 

It is true that the early relationship of Celts and Teutons 
is not a question whose treatment is essential to the object 
of this work — that object being to unfold relationships 
which arose between a portion of the race named Teutonic, 
and a portion of the race named Celtic, not in remote, but 
in historic times, and having as the theatre of their opera- 
tions the British Isles. We have to show, in short, how 
far the native, perhaps aboriginal, tribes of these islands 
have entered into the ancestry of the present British people. 
To inquire, therefore, into prior relationship between Celts 

1 See Bunsen's paper on Egyptian Researches in Relation to Asiatic an J 

African Ethnology, read before the British Association at Oxford. 

- See Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, Latham's ed., 
1857. Confer also Schilter's Thcsaur. Antiq. Teuton., and Wachter's 

Glossarium German., passim. 



RELATION OF CELTS AND TEUTONS. 2Q 

and Teutons as members of the great Indo-European 
family, would only be to take a step in the direction of 
universal ethnology, which would eventually land us at the 
universal brotherhood of all men. We must not run into 
this wide inquiry. Our point of incidence is at a recent 
stage in the history of mankind, where national distinctions 
had followed race distinctions, and these had obtained such 
prominence as to sever into widely-separated sections the 
originally one family of man. Teutons and Celts, for the 
objects of this essay, form sufficiently distinct Ethnological 
stocks, meeting in the course of their migrations in these 
Western regions as strangers, and more or less coalescing 
with each other, so as to constitute in process of time one 
great nation. 

It is impossible, however, for the sake of an artificial 
arrangement, to ignore the fact that, as already intimated, 
these people, if each followed for itself the line of its descent 
backwards, would as infallibly as the rays of the sun or the 
branches of an arterial system, meet at no great distance in 
a common centre. Their modern coalition is only a new 
confluence of streams, which not only as tiny rivulets had 
taken their departure from the same fountain, but had now 
and then glided closely past each other, and even partly 
mixed their waters in traversing the continent of Europe. 
It were utterly irrational and unhistoric to hold absolute 
distinctness and separate purity of blood as between these 
divisions of Europeans. They were separated by territory, 
aggregated by interest, not by difference or community of 
blood. "Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans," 
says Sir F. Palgrave, " were all relations : however hostile, 
they were all kinsmen, shedding kindred blood." 1 

Where could these races have met before they crossed 

1 English Commonwealth, i. p. t*. 



30 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

swords on British ground ? The Cimbri had once possession 
of the Cimbric Chersonese or Jtitlaxid, and being so near 
and in such teeming numbers, had most probably peopled 
the same tracts which afterwards yielded the Angles, Jutes, 
and Saxons, who followed them more as despoilers than 
friends to Britain. Nor is it at all beyond the bounds of 
probability that the Britons sent for help to North Germany, 
not merely as the wonderful region whence heroic warriors 
and fierce sea-rovers in countless myriads issued, but also 
as the land which they knew by tradition to have once been 
the home of their own ancestors. Tradition, the memory 
of a nation, is wonderfully retentive, and upon the whole 
singularly accurate. Commerce, also, had evidently existed 
between the two peoples. Saxons had been allowed to 
settle in Britain prior to the Roman occupation. The 
" Saxon Shore " of the Island on the south [litus Sax- 
onicum\ had most likely derived its name from Saxon 
incursions and settlements in those parts. 1 Names of 
places on the opposite shore of the Channel clearly prove 
that Teutonic settlement had also been largely effected in 
Gaul. 

The point of early junction referred to between the 
ancestry of Britons and Saxons would form a parallel to 
the relation subsisting between the Saxons and Danes of 
England and the followers of William at the Conquest, for 
these also were in part children of the North of Germany 
and of the Scandinavian peninsula. The composition of 
the Conqueror's forces, however, is largely dealt with in a 
subsequent chapter. 

It is curious to notice by the way another antecedent 
junction, mentioned by Appian.' 2 He says that the Nervii, 

1 See Grimm, Gesch. dtr Dcutsch. Sprache, p. 6^5. 
8 De Rtb. Gall., iv. 1., 4. 



RELATION OF CELTS AND TEUTONS. 3 I 

one of the Belgic tribes, were descendants of Cimbri and 

Teutons. Nep/?ioi 7]ara; 8e KifM(3pwv Kai TevTovow airoyovoi. 

The names given by Greek and Roman historians are at 
times very vague and perplexing. For example, Dion 
Cassius says that the Greeks called some of the Celts 
" Germans," and the country they inhabited (Celtica), 

GCTMClliy. KeA/riiil' yap Ttves ov% S77 Tepfxavovs KaXuvfxev, &C. 

The opinion held by some accomplished ethnologists, 
such as Latham, 1 that the " so-called " Cimbri of the Cher- 
sonese were not Celts, and that they were not related to 
the Cymri of Britain, is, we conceive, more ingeniously 
than soundly advocated. Local names in Jutland, and 
words in the vernacular of Schleswig and Holstein are 
found to be Cymric. It is difficult to know why the 
Chersonese should be called Cimbnca at all, except for the 
reason that Cimbri abode therein ; and it is impossible to 
account for the belief of ancient historians that this penin- 
sula was inhabited by Cimbri unless such was the case. 

Equally difficult is it to account for the adoption of the 
name Cymry or Cymri by the people now represented by 
the inhabitants of Wales, unless we allow as the reason 
their relationship to the ancient Cimbri. Not much im- 
portance can be attached to Zeuss's assertion, that the 
name is of recent adoption by the Celts of Britain. It may 
be so, and yet be only a revived ancient name, and revived 
on the ground of conscious right of consanguinity. The- 
etymology Zeuss gives to Cymro, Cymru, &c, is also fanciful 
and misleading : " can, in comp. cyn — same as Latin con, 

x See The Germania of Tacitus, Ed. by Dr. Latham, 1851. Append., 
p. civ. Though in this instance compelled to dissent from Dr. Latham, 
we are bound to confess to the highest admiration of his various writings. 
An accomplished modern writer, coupling his works with the late 
Dr. Donaldson's, speaks of them as " somewhat dangerous." They can 
only be so as his great erudition enables him but too successfully to 
advocate a wrong opinion when he happens to adopt it. 



22 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and bro=brog, land — whence he arrives at the meaning of 
indigenous, belonging to the country} There exists no ground 
whatever except fancy for such etymology as this. The 
plain account of the name is that it is a modification of 
Cimbri, just as Cimbri again, according to the testimony of 
Diodorus, is "a slight modification" of Cimmerii. 2 He 
says, " Those [Celts] towards the north and bordering upon 
Scythia are so exceeding fierce and cruel that, as report 
goes, they eat men like the Britons who inhabit Iris. So 
fierce are they that by some they have been held to be the 
same with those who in ancient times overran all Asia 
and were then called Cimmerii, but who are now through 
length of time, with a little alteration, named Civibri." 

Be the case as it may with respect to the Cimbric 
Chersonese, there can be no dispute as to whether the Celts 
of the continent are found in frequent contact with Teutons. 
As we have just shown, they are said by Appian to unite 
with the Teutons in the composition of the people called 
Nervii, and the name he gives them is Cimbri. Paterculus 
mentions Cimbri and Teutones together as a " German " 
people. 3 Caesar informs us that they overran Gaul together, 
and were only put in check by the Belgae, 4 &c. 

That people thus intimately associated should to a great 
extent become mixed, and their languages in future times 
exhibit many materials in common — as we find them now to 
do — is all but unavoidable. 

(r.) The Celtic tribes of ancient Britain — the Cymry, Bclgce, Lloegrians, 
Brython, Gaels, Picts, Scots. 

Having glanced at the earlier relations of the stocks 
which in conjunction have contributed the main materials 

1 Confer Zeuss, Qrammatica Cettica, 2nd Ed. pp. 206, 207. - Diod. Sic.x.z. 
:1 Lib. ii. S, 12. 'De Bell. Gall. ii. 4. 



EARLY BRITONS ALL CELTS. 33 

of the English nation, we now confine our attention to the 
Celtic tribes of Britain, and their relation to each other. 
We need not stay to prove that the native population 
found by the Romans in Britain were Celts. Whatever that 
term may mean, it is a designation properly applied to 
them. Very few even among the wildest theorists have 
denied its correctness, while the united voice of historians, 
ancient and modern, is in its favour. But while the British 
aborigines were all Celts, they still presented many 
diversities. They were divided into several independent 
sovereignties. They went by different names, and spoke 
languages which to a stranger might appear to be different. 
They had arrived in Britain, it cannot be doubted, at 
different times, and probably at different points of the 
coast, and from different parts of the continent. Some 
had come from the north of Germany, some from Belgic, 
some from Armoric Gaul. Their separation prior to their 
reunion in Britain may have been very long. The only 
question we need settle here is whether that separation 
had been so prolonged as to occasion such diversities in 
speech and manners, and such intermixtures with other 
races, as would render it improper to consider them one 
nation or people, under the common designation "Ancient 
Britons." 

The researches of modern historians unequivocally favour 
the opinion that under the names of KeArai, TaXarai, Gauls, 
Gaels, Gwyddyls, Celts, Cimmerii, Cimbri, Cymry, Brython, 
Lloegrians, Scots and Picts, only one race, under different 
tribe or clan divisions, political organizations, and periods 
of existence, is spoken of, and while different degrees of 
diversity through shorter or longer periods of estrangement 
and foreign admixture had intervened, still no such diversity 
prevailed as would materially affect their unity and integrity, 
and hence their classification as one people. 

D 



34 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

i. The KifjLfiepioi. — we mean the historical Kt/^epun, not 
those of Homer — the Cimmerii, Cimbri (hence Welsh 
Cymry), at one time peopled the valley of the Danube, the 
shores' of the Sea of Azof, the Crimea on the Cimmerian 
Bosphorus, and the Chersonesus Cimbrica or Jutland. 
From this last locality it was that they issued forth in such 
formidable hosts in the second century, B.C., and committed 
such havock among the Roman armies under Papirius 
Carbo, Junius Silanus, Cn. Mallius, and Servilius Csepio, 
until they were at last (B.C. 101) brought to bay by Marius 
near Verona, and completely and finally defeated. This 
great branch of the Celtic race was probably its chief 
representative in Roman times, but they had brethren in 
the form of scattered tribes in various parts of the continent 
of Europe which are occasionally mentioned by ancient 
historians, both Greek and Roman. These were fragments 
of the great Celtic stock left behind during migrations, cut 
off by war, or voluntarily wandering in search of better 
fortune. 

At what time, or from what quarter, the Cimbri (Cymry) 
came first to Britain it is impossible to ascertain. For the 
Celtic race, in their westward progress from Asia, Meyer 
assigns two principal routes, and along one or other of 
these, and perhaps chiefly by the northern (if credit is given 
to the declarations of the Triads), the Cymry made their way 
to their final home. Meyer listens to the intimations, slight 
as they may be, of history, but mostly relies on the abiding 
footprints discovered in local names. He traces one route 
through Syria and Egypt, along the northern coast of 
Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar, and through Spain 
to Gaul, where it separates into three branches, one termi- 
nating in the British Isles, the other in Italy, and the third 
near the Black Sea. The other great stream of migration 
ran less circuitously and more northwards, through Scythia 



SUPPOSED ROUTES OF CELTIC MIGRATION. 







Page 33 



THE CYMRY. 35 

in Europe, the shores of the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia or 
Jutland, Prussia (the supposed Pwyl of the Welsh Triads), 
through Northern Germany, the plains of the Elbe (the 
region of the Saxons), and to Britain across the German 
Ocean, the " hazy sea," [Mor Tawcli) of the Triads. It is 
conjectured, moreover, that the stream which came by 
Africa and Spain was the earliest to reach Britain. They 
may have been the Gaels. The two routes are roughly 
represented on the annexed sketch map. 

Whatever the origin of the name Cymry, and whence- 
soever the people, it is obvious from the whole tenor of 
their history that they had from early times obtained a 
commanding position among the other Celtic tribes of 
Britain. They seem, by pre-eminence, to have been called 
by the old ancestral name, Cimbri — the name, however, of 
a section only of the generic stock, the Celtse (KeXrat). 
While, therefore, all the British Celtic tribes shall be com- 
prehended by us under the term " Ancient Britons," a place 
of distinction must be accorded the Cymry as the strongest, 
and most persistent in maintaining language, race, and 
territory, of all their brethren. It may be that this dis- 
tinction was won at the cost of greater comparative re- 
duction in number than fell to the lot of the more yielding 
tribes — the Brython, Lloegrians, and Cumbrians. Be this 
as it may, history presents no section of a people standing 
forth more conspicuously from the general mass, and 
solemnizing with more impressive sacrifices at the shrine 
of home and country. They yielded — but only inch by 
inch, to a superior foe ; and, at the last, an unincorporated 
remnant scorning surrender, carried away with them, as 
./Eneas did from Troy, their choicest and most valued 
treasures — their kindred, and their 

". . . . sacra .... patriosque penales," 
made Wales their chosen land, Mona, as many think, the 

D 2 



36 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

sanctuary of their priesthood, and the Snowdon mountains 
the citadel of their freedom. Their name, language, and 
honour they have to this day preserved as memorials of 
their past ; and though they have left behind them, en- 
g"ulphed in the great vortex of conquest and incorporation, 
the greater part of themselves, their brethren of Strathclyde, 
Cumbria, Cornwall, and the long ago vanished Lloegrians 
and Brython, they still survive, and constitute a part, not 
insignificant, not morally or politically unhealthy, but 
strong, vital, and honourable, of the renowned people of 
Britain. Their time of painful conflict for independence is 
past ; their time of peace, good government, prosperity is 
come — of which their good genius long centuries ago might 

have said : — 

" Revocate animos, moestumque timorem 
Mittite ; forsan et hasc olim meminisse juvabit. 
Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum 
Tendimus in Latium ; sedes ubi fata quietas 
Ostendunt." 

The " Latium " to which, " through so many perilous 
adventures," and much against their will, they have been 
conducted, and where, for 1,900 years at least, they have 
first found " peaceful settlements," is union with England. 
And now that they have been taught at last to value peace, 
let them gird themselves for distinction in a new field — to 
them in modern times perfectly new — the field of the in- 
dustrial arts, intellectual culture, and political pro- 
gress. With respect to these things, the people of every 
civilized country, knowing their story, and holding in 
honour the honesty and brightness of their nature will say 
to them : — 

" Durate, et vosmet rebus servale secundis." 

2. The BelgeB. The opinion has always prevailed, and 
cannot be invalidated, that Britain was first peopled from 



THE BELG^. 37 

Gaul. A large portion of Gaul, corresponding with 
modern Belgium and Holland, with portions of Flanders, 
Picardy, and Normandy, was inhabited by the "Belgae," 
and named by the Romans Gallia Belgica. Tribes were 
found in Britain also, whom Caesar calls Beiges, and gives 
us to understand that they were of the Belgae of Gaul. 
Now it has been a question in ethnology whether the Belgae 
of Gaul, and by consequence those of Britain, were Celts 
(like the Galli in general), or Germans, or a mixture of 
both. We believe that the Belgae of Gaul themselves were 
largely a Celtic people, with an infusion of Germanic blood. 
There is nothing to be gained to ethnology by denying 
that the Belgae of Britain were a branch of those of Gaul. 
Not only the statements of Caesar, but the local names on 
both sides the channel, show that they were one people. 

Now the only point material to us in this place is, 
whether these " Belgae " were, in the main, a Celtic race. 
That they had received a Teutonic tinge is admitted ; but 
were they Celtic in the main ? They were. And more : 
they were a branch of the Celts nearly related to the Cymry. 
This is proved by the language they spoke. Strabo was 
not a careless or incorrect historian, and he not only states 
that the Celtic name was given to all the Gauls, 1 but dis- 
tinctly affirms that the language spoken by the Celts was, 
with few variations, the languag'e spoken by the Belga ; 
" Eadem non usque quaque lingua utantur omnes, sed 
paululum variata." 2 

The nature of this language may also be learned from 
the local names, and tribe names, of Belgica. The 
dwellers on the sea coast opposite Dover were the MorxrCx 
(Welsh, viur, sea ; Corn.,///*)/-; Arm., mdr). Many of the 

1 Nomen Celtarum universis Gallis inditum, ob gentis claritatem. 
Lib. iv. 

2 Strabo, lib. iv. 






33 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

towns of the Belgae situated on rivers were called by names 
commencing" with dur, the Celtic word for " water," as 
Z>w;-ocortorum (modern Rheims), Turnacum (Tournay), 
Z)^rocatalaunum (Chalons), (Welsh, dwr, water, river). 1 
Others, and their inhabitants, commenced as in Welsh, 
Cornish, or Armoric, with tre, " abode " ; as Trev\ri y 
KtrebaXVi, Tricasses. Some, again, contained the Celtic 
dun (Welsh, din, dinas, " a high place of strength," citadel ; 
Corn., dun, a hill), as Virodunum, ~Lugdunum. Others had 
the Celtic caer (Welsh, caer ; Corn., caer ; Arm., ker ; Irish, 
cathir, pronounced cair, a " fortress," " city "), as Caeresi, 
Ccrtovallum, Carmiliaca. Their rivers had the Celtic 
avon and wysg, as Matr<?/zn, Axona, Scquana? 

The Celtic character of tribes whose names, and the 
names of whose towns and rivers, contained such elements 
— elements observable in the most purely Celtic districts 
of Britain — cannot for a moment be questioned. That great 
numbers of these people moved across to our island, as 
intimated by Caesar, is obvious. The Atrebatii of Belgica 
had their counterpart in the Atrebatii of Wilts and Berks ; 
the Catalauni in the Cateuchlani inhabiting the central 
parts north of the Thames, &c. Names of towns and 
rivers likewise correspond. As to the language, Sir F. 
Palgrave gives it as his opinion that at least one-third of 

1 Comp. Part III. chap. iii. sect. 3 (b) of this essay. 

2 Ibid. It is often said, since the opinion was given by Lhwyd, that 
wysg and csk can only be derived from the Irish uisk, "water," and this 
is used as one chief argument for the priority of occupation of Britain 
by the Gael. But it is observable that rivers designated by this term 
are rapid streams, and we are much inclined to take the word as an 
adjective marking this quality. In Welsh, gwysg, gifisgi, feminine 
form wisgi, is an adjective signifying quick, brisk, gay, precipitate, 
headlong. Owysg also in Welsh signifies " stream," and this is from 
gwy, water. Moreover, it by no means follows that becauso this word 
uisk or uisge is now only found in Irish or Gaelic, that in early ages it 
was not also found in Cymric. 



THE BELGiE. 39 

the vocabulary of the Cymric consists of roots which it 
possesses in common with the Belgic. 1 

The Belgae of Britain, therefore, were of a cognate race 
with the Cymry, and their presence under a name some- 
what non-Celtic disturbs not the substantial unity and 
integrity of the Ancient Britons. 

But we have historic as well as philologic testimony 
respecting the Celtic character of the Belgae. Out of some 
fifteen Belgic tribes enumerated by Caesar, he selects only 
three or four as distinctively Germanic. To none of the 
great tribes of Belgica, but only to a few of the more 
insignificant, does Tacitus attribute a Germanic origin. 
Such is the case with Strabo. The Galatae of Asia Minor 
are allowed to be Celts, but St. Jerome testifies .that the 
Belgic Treviri spoke a language similar to theirs. We 
have seen (see p. 30) that Appian relates that the Ncrvii 
— probably the least Celtic of all the Belgic tribes — were a 
compound of Cimbri and Teutons. 

When Caesar, in giving a general description of the 
people of Gaul, divides them into three portions, Belgae, 
Galli (who called themselves, as he says, " Celtae "), and 
Aquitani, and informs us, " Hi omnes in lingua, institutis, 
legibus, inter se differunt, " he gives information which, if 
taken absolutely, is now allowed by all competent judges ■ 
to be incorrect, but if taken as a loose and general state- 
ment, meaning only that dialectic variations, even of a 
marked character, prevailed, may be received as history. 
The only difference in language in Belgic and other parts 
of Gaul, so far as we can judge, was one which may fairly 
be termed dialectic ; and when the same people crossed 
over to Britain, some from Belgica, some from Lugclu- 
nensis (which included Normandy and Brittany) they knew 
each other as' brethren of one stock, and had probably 

1 Engl. Comm., i. 27. 



40 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

fewer differences of speech as a barrier to intercourse, than 
would be presented now if Cymry from Wales and Bretons 
from Finisterre tried to colonize a new region in concert. 

With this view agrees the opinion of the accomplished 
Frenchman, M. Emile Souvestre, who, with reference to 
Caesar's " trois grands peuples," says : — " Mais il est clair 
que ces trois nations, qui avaient une meme origine, les 
memes institutions politiques, la meme religion, parlaient, 
a. peu de chose pres, la meme langue ; et quand Cesar dit : 
' Hi omnes lingua, institutes, legibus, inter se differ unt J il faut 
traduire ici le mot lingua par dialecte." And he then adds 
with much force, that if this is not so, then the language 
used elswhere by Caesar, with respect to the German king 
Ariovistus, is incomprehensible : " Sans cela, ce que dit le 
meme Cesar serait incomprehensible, lorsqu'il assure, sans 
distinguer entre les Beiges, les Celtes, et les Aquitaiucs, 
qu' Arioviste, roi des Germains, avait appris la langue gau- 
loise par un long commerce avec ce peuple. Que signifierait 
la langue gauloisc s'il ne s'agissait d'une langue parlee dans 
toutes les Gaules ? "' 

Much can be said in favour of the view that the " Belgae" 
and the " Galli " of Caesar stood in about the same relation 
to each other as the Cymry and the Gaels of to-day, both 
as to blood and language. Put into tabular form, they 
would stand thus : — 

The Ancient Galli f Representatives of the true 

The Modern Gaels, or Gwyddyls I " Celtas. " 

The Ancient " Belgae " ( Mixed, but cognate to the 

The Modern Cymry ( true " Celts. " 

Caesar may have meant by Belgae, Galli, and Aquitani, 
the peoples otherwise called Flemings, Gauls proper (i.e., 
Celts), and Basques; or (otherwise named) Cimbri, Celts, 

1 Les Derniers Bretons, i. 141, 14a. 



EVIDENCE OF GAULISH INSCRIPTIONS. 41 

and Basques, the two former according' to this view being 
as distinct in language as the Cymry of Wales and the 
Gaels of Ireland are now. 1 

The only effect of this theory would be to widen the 
distance in some small degree between the Galli and Belga3 
of ancient times, and between the Gaels and Cymry of 
to-day, respectively ; making the Irish and Welsh, though 
cognate, to differ, as languages, and not as dialects of the 
same language. In fact, Irish would then be to Welsh 
what Greek is to Latin, or Sclavonic to Lithuanian. 

The opinion that the words of Caesar, when speaking 
of the tribes of Gaul, " Hi omnes in lingua, &c, inter se 
differunt," refer to a dialectic distinction precisely identical 
with that existing between modern Cymric and Gaelic, 
seems to be supported by the recent discoveries in the soil 
of France of old Gaulish inscriptions, which are believed to 
preserve remains of two forms of the early Celtic speech of 
Gaul. These forms are said to show clear resemblances to 
the Irish, and fewer resemblances to the Welsh. 2 

Almost all these inscriptions are votive or dedicatory — 
commemorating, that is, the dedication of some altar, 
drinking utensil, amulet, or other object, to some deity. 
They are for the most part written in Roman characters, 
but include two in Greek characters, and one, found in 
Italy, in two languages, Gaulish and Latin — the Gaulish 
being written in Etruscan characters, in many points re- 
sembling those of the much earlier "Eugubian Tables," 3 

1 This is the opinion given in a private communication by the late 
Dr. Rowland Williams, who is known to have bestowed much attention 
upon this question. 

2 For a full account of these interesting memorials, see Pictet's Essai 
sur quelques Inscriptions en Langue Gauloisc, 1859; Roget de Belloquet's 
Ethnogenic Gauloisc, 1858; also a paper by Mr. D. W. Nash, F.S.A., in 
the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, vol. viii., 1865. 

3 See Sir \V. Betham's Elruria Celliai, p. 88, &C. 



42 TPIE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and in less degree prefiguring the much later so-called 
"Bardic Aphabet" of Wales. 1 

Although written in the Roman character, the inscrip- 
tions are insufficient to prove that the Gaulish tribes had 
not an alphabet of their own prior to their subjugation by 
Rome. That the Druids knew the art of writing when 
Cassar came in contact with them is testified by himself, 
but he also states that they wrote in Greek characters, 
which they may have found more useful than their own. 

Nor can we say that these inscriptions supply clear indi- 
cations as to the localities respectively occupied by the 
Cymric and Gaelic tribes. They are nearly all found in 
the regions termed by the Classic writers Gallia Celtica — 
the part of Gaul south of the rivers Seine [Sequana) and 
Marne [Matrond], and said by Cassar to be inhabited by 
Celtic Gauls, while the country north of those rivers was 
peopled by the " BelgaB." If M. Amedee Thierry's opinion 
(developed in his Histoire dcs Gaulois) be correct, namely, 
that the Celts of Gallia Celtica were originally of the Gaelic 
or Irish type, afterwards intermixed with an intrusive 
Cymric element, while the " Belga^ " of Gallia Belgica (of 
whom Csesar was informed that they were mostly of 
German origin) were of the pure Cymric type, the conjec- 
ture that the Celtic words found in the inscriptions resemble 
Gadhelic or Irish more nearly than Cymric will acquire 
increased plausibility. 

But when we remember that no less a man than Zeuss, 
in spite of these Gaulish inscriptions, has held that the lan- 
guage of Gaul was of one single type — the Cymric, and also 
that Leo, an almost equally able Celtic savan, held that the 
language of Gallia Belgica was Gadhelic, and that of Gallia 
Celtica, Cymric — the direct contradictory of Thierry's theory, 

1 For an account, more amusing than reliable, of this Alphabet, see 
Coclbrcny Dcirdd, pp. 6, 7, 15, 20—25 > I°^° MSS. pp. 424, 617—623. 



THE CELTS OF BRITAIN AND GAUL. 43 

and nearly as much at variance with that of Zeuss, it is 
seen how much has yet to be discovered before we can 
speak with determinate confidence on the subject. 

It must be confessed that the materials supplied by the 
Gaulish inscriptions are very scanty, and that the inter- 
pretations as yet given them are imperfect, and by no 
means adequate as data for conclusions. They may safely 
be taken as handing down remains of a tongue clearly 
Celtic, but showing inflexions which it would be hazardous 
to say are identical with any now found in Irish, or dis- 
similar to any at one time found in Cymric. 1 

3. The Celts of Britain and of Gaul generally. In 
Britain and in Gaul the Celtic race was broken up into a 
great variety of tribe distinctions. In Gaul they are said 
to have constituted sixty-four states or bodies politic 
(civitates 2 ) ; and Caesar mentions four " kings " among the 

1 One word, supposed to be Celtic, is very prominent in these inscrip- 
tions, and is understood to be the verb of the sentence in each case, 
expressing the act of dedication. This word is IEVRV, and has given 
rise to much discussion and conjecture, since in none of the modern 
Celtic dialects is there found a term corresponding with it in form and 
meaning. It is just possible that this is an archaic Celtic word cognate 
with the Greek iepeus, priest, and iepevw, to dedicate; or, since the Greek 
alphabet was known to the Druids, and the Greek language itself may- 
have been known, this word, and others (including many of the vocables 
common to Welsh and classic Greek) may have been borrowed by them 
from the learned tongue, as many Latin words, as proved by these 
inscriptions, were borrowed. 

Upon the whole it seems highly probable — and these Gaulish inscrip- 
tions add to the weight of probability — that the Galli of Caesar were in 
the same line of Celtic descent with the Irish, and that the name is 
preserved to this day in Gadhel and Gael, and commemorated also in 
the Triad Galedin, Celyddon, and Gwyddyl, as well as in Caledonia, TaKaras, 
KeXrai, and Celtse. It is also nearly certain that these Galli or Gaels 
were the first to colonize Britain, and probable that they were the first 
to colonize Gaul, and that in both cases they were closely followed by a 
people of the same original stock and using a similar language, called 
Cymry, Cimbri, and in earlier times Kifx^pioi, Cimmerii. 

2 Tacitus, Annates, iii. 44. 



44 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Britons of Kent alone in league with Cassibelaunus against 
the Romans. 1 

Whatever length of time may have elapsed since the 
British Celts had left the parent stem, it is clear that inter- 
course and recognition of kinship had continued. Caesar's 
reason for invading Britain — that " in all his wars with the 
Gauls " the Britons had rendered them assistance, is proof 
of this. Their communications with each other were 
frequent and rapid. Caesar no sooner purposes to invade, 
than his purpose is known to the islanders through 
" merchants " passing to and fro. 2 The warmest national 
sympathy was exhibited when danger threatened, although 
probably — as the manner of the race has always been — 
they allowed no delay in fighting each other, when no 
foreign foe threw down the gauntlet. 

The relationship of the islanders to the tribes of the 
Continent is clearly stated by Caesar, although his words, 
" pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsa 
memoria proditum dicunt," seem to intimate an interior 
population in Britain of singular antiquity and origin. In 
the names which all these people continue to give each 
■other we recognize the accents of ancient consanguinity. 
The French, descendants in the main of the ancient Galli, 
call the Welsh Gallois ; the Welsh call the Irish Gwyddyl ; 
the Highlanders call both themselves and the Irish Gael — 
distinguishing themselves as " Gael Albinnich " from the 
Irish " Gael Erinnich." 

As to language, Tacitus has left a most significant state- 
ment : their speech was nearly alike — " Eorum sermo baud 
multum diversus." ;i As to religion, the same Druidic 

1 De Bell. 0,7/1. , v. i8. 

2 Dc Bell. (rail. iv. 18. And yet the Emperor Napoleon thinks " the 
Britons had no shipping in the time of Caesar." — Hist, of Julius Cctsar, 
vol. ii. p. 184. 

3 Vita Aerie, xi. 



THE CELTS OF IRELAND AND CALEDONIA. 45 

cultus prevailed in Gaul and Britain, only the latter seems 
to have been considered its chief seat. The same kind 
of houses were built. The social and political institutions 
of both had much in common ; in their manners and 
customs, modes of dress and life, as well as in personal 
appearance and temperament, they manifested all the 
characteristics of one and the same people. 

As to the inhabitants of that part of Gaul, called in 
earlier times Armorica, and now Brittany, or Bretagne, 
evidence, both of history and of language, is superabundant 
to prove their close relationship with the Cymric Celts of 
Britain. The language of both people, in spite of a sepa- 
ration of more than a thousand years, and the natural 
changes in inflection, through loss or addition of words, 
through the influence of Latin and French on the Armori- 
can, of Latin, English, and Norman-French on the Welsh r 
are still so nearly alike as to merit no stronger separating 
name than that of "dialects" of the same speech. History 
relates the conquest of Armorica by the Britons, and the 
settlement at different times of vast hosts of them, now by 
force, now by permission, in that land, mixing anew the 
blood of ancient kindred, and swelling into a more copious 
body the vocables of long-separated branches of the one 
ancient speech. Hence the correctness of the statement 
made by M. Emile Souvestre : " Le bas Breton actuel 
n'est done pas un reste de Gaulois, mais de langue 
Britannique." l It is beyond doubt that, while the lan- 
guage of ancient Amorica, along with that of Gaul generally, 
not omitting Belgica, belonged to the generic Celtic, that 
same language, through more modern vicissitudes, may 
now be termed Birtannic-Celtic, rather than Gallic-Celtic. 

4. The Celts of Ireland and Caledonia. In the absence 
of historic record, we are justified in presuming, on grounds 
1 Lis Demiers Bretons, i. 144. 



46 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

of antecedent probability, that Ireland would receive it's 
first inhabitants from Wales or Scotland. Wonderful 
explorers were those ancient Celts ! Probably they soon 
pushed their way through thicket and swamp to the High- 
lands of Scotland, and finding there an end to their 
territory, they then from the highest eminences looked out 
westward, and descried the misty coast of the Green Isle. 
The early separation of these pioneers of the Gallic race 
through their crossing to Ireland, whether from Scotland 
or Wales, is quite sufficient to account for the marked 
difference now existing between the Gaelic or Irish language 
and the Welsh. 

The first tribes to arrive in Britain would probably be 
the first settlers in Scotland and Ireland. Pressed towards 
the interior by subsequent arrivals, nomadic hordes but 
slightly attached to any particular spot, they would readily 
move forward to new pasturages, rather than long contend 
for the old. The Gaelic or Gadhelic people, therefore, may 
be presumed to have had the advantage of priority of 
occupation. But the ground, of course, is one of presump- 
tion — not one of historic statement, much less of induction 
from, a large array of facts. 

The Gaelic language undoubtedly differs very widely 
from the Cymraeg. So does the Irish. These two, the Irish 
and Gaelic, are so nearly alike, that for the general pur- 
poses of philology, they may be considered as one, and in 
this light we treat them, here and in the chapter on philo- 
logy. Adelung, and with him Schloezer, followed our great 
Cambrian philologist and antiquarian, Edward Lhwyd, in 
directing special attention to the divergence of these two 
dialects of the Celtic language from the Welsh. Modern 
philology has pursued the inquiry to further results, and 
has established beyond question not only the fact that 
Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, Armoric, and Manx are 



GAELIC AND CYMRIC CELTIC. 47 

cognate languages, or rather dialects of the same mother 
language, but also, that these six are to be divided into two 
groups of three each, according to their nearness of approxi 
mation to each other : — 

f Erse, in Ireland, 
i. Gaelic Branch ] Gaelic, in the Highlands of Scotland. 

\ Manx, in the Isle of Man. 

/ Welsh, in Wales. 
2. Cymric Branch < Armorican, in Brittany. 

V Cornish, extinct. 1 

An unwritten language, having no guarantee for the 
permanence of its forms, but the organs of hearing and 
speech, commences the process of becoming two languages 
the moment those who speak it separate into two commu- 
nities occupying different territories. The number of com- 
munities formed determines the number of new languages, 
or dialects, to be developed. All things being equal, diver- 
gence will increase according to time given. These posi- 
tions are allowed to be indisputable. If, therefore, the 
Irish, Gaelic, and Manx have diverged from the Welsh 
more than the Armorican and Cornish have done, this is 
proof only of longer separation. The insular position of 
the Gaels of Ireland would almost completely cut them off 
from their brethren in Britain, and thus facilitate the 
growth of dissimilarity in the cognate languages, or 
dialects. The Armoricans, though in like manner sepa- 
rated by the sea, are proved by history and tradition to 
have, through many hundred years, maintained intercourse 
with their British kindred, and to have at times received 
large accessions of population from them. The effect of 
territorial separation would by this means be greatly 

1 The Lexicon Cornu-Drittanicun:, by the Rev. R. Williams, M.A., of 
Rhydycroesau, is the best contribution yet made to Cornish philology, 
and demonstrates the propriety cf this mode of grouping the Celtcj 
tongues. 



48 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

neutralised, and the substance and forms of the two 
dialects be kept more nearly alike. As to the Cornish, this 
was lopped off from the Cymric stock in comparatively 
recent times, and its divergence therefore is not great. 
If we take Wales itself as an example, we shall find that 
the provincial estrangement, through the w r ars of the 
Middle-ages between the North and the South, caused a 
divergence so great in the language of the two sections, 
that a man of Anglesey is scarcely understood in Glamorgan. 
The same thing is seen if we compare the speech of York- 
shire with that of Kent. 

The greater similarity of modern Irish to modern Gaelic 
than of either to modern Welsh l may be seen at a glance 
by comparing one sentence of the Lord's prayer in each : 

English : Give us this day our daily bread. 
\ Irish : Ar naran laeathamhail tabhair dhuinn a riu. 
/ Gaelic : Tabhair dhuin an diugh ar n'aran laitheil. 

Welsh : Dyro i ni heddyw ein bara beunyddiol. 

The Armoric bears decided similarity to the Welsh. 

Armoric: Ro deomp bep deiz hor bara pemdeziec. 
Welsh : Rho i ni bob dydd ein bara beunyddiol. 

Again : — 

A rmoric : Merc'hed Jerusalem, na oueilit ked warnoun me, mes goueilit 
warnoc'h hoc'h-unan, &c. 

Welsh : Merched Jerusalem, na wylwch o'm plegid I, ond wylwch 
o'ch plegid eich hunain, &c 

One sentence to show how much the Armoric has been 
corrupted by French. 

1 But how much more similar to each other were all these Celtic 
dialects a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago it is needless to remark. 
The old Cornish vocabulary of the thirteenth century, in the British 
Museum (Cotton. Bib!. Vespas. A. 14) will show the student who is 
familiar with the Welsh of the twelfth century how much nearer these 
two languages were then to each other, than the Cornis/: Remains 
Fifteenth Century, recently published under the able editorship of 
Mr. Norris, are to the Welsh of the present time. 



ARMORIC, CORNISH, IRISH. 



49 



Armoric: Mes araog an holl draouze hei a lakaio o daouarn warnoc'h 
hag o persecute, o livra ac'hanoch d'ar sinagogou, hag o lakaad ac'hanoc'h 
er prizonion, hag e veot caset dirag ronancd ha gouarnerkn, &c. 

The Cornish language comes nearer to the Welsh than 
does the Armoric. Words italicised are corruptions. 1 



Cornish. 

Pan welas na ylly delyffre. 

Nyns us pons war dhour Cedron. 

Yma gena un be da, gorra hag 
eys kemyskys. 

Mesk ow pobel ny vynnaf na 
fella agas godhaf. 

Dour ha ler, ha tan, ha gwyns, 
haul ha lour, ha steyr kyffris, . . . 
anken y a wodhevys. 

Godheveuch omma lavur, ha 
gollyouch genef. 

Pan y'th welaf, bos hep hyreth 
my ny allaf. 

Yn levyryma scrifys, dre cledhe 
nep a vewo, ef a vyru yn sur 
dredho. 

Mi a credy yn Dew an Tas 
01gallusek,Gwrearan nefha'n'oar. 

Ny a whyth yn dhy vody sperys, 
may hylly bewe. 

Govyn orto mar a'm bydh oyl 
a vercy yn dywedh. 



Welsh. 

Pan welodd na allai draddodi. 

Nid oes pont ar ddwr Cedron. 

Y mae genyf un baich da, gwair 
ac yd cymysg. 

Ymysg fy mhobl ni fynaf yn 
bellach eich goddef. 

Dwr a llawr (daear), a than, a 
gwynt, haul a lloer, a ser yn gyf- 
ryw, ing a oddefasant. 

Goddefwch yma lafur, a gwyl- 
iwch genyf. 

Pan y'th welaf, bod heb hiraeth 
mi ni allaf. 

Yn y llyfr y mae yn 'scrifenedig, 
y neb a fo fyw drwy y cleddyf, ef 
yn siwr a fydd farw drwyddo. 

Mi a gredaf yn Nuvv Dad 
Hollalluog, Creawdwr nef a daear. 

Ni a chwythwn yn dy gorph 
yspryd, mal y gelli fyw. 

Gofyn wrtho (iddo) pa un i mi 
fydd olew trugaredd yn y diwedd. 



From the foregoing examples it is evident, thatall these 
six divisions of Celts are nearly related to each other, 
and that nearest to the Cymry come, first the Cornish, and 
next the Armoricans. The Gaels, or Gaedhils of Ireland, 
have departed further from the Cymric type, in language, 
if not also in blood. 

The Picts and Scots have usually been associated with 

1 Confer Williams's Lexicon Comu-Britann. On the analogy of the 
different Celtic tongues, see at length Zeuss's Gramm. Celtica, 2nd Ed. t 
passim ; on the conjugation of the verb, especially, pp. 425 — 606. 



50 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Caledonia. These names are recent in origin, being used 
only by later Roman writers. 1 Bede (sixth cent.) calls 
Caledonia " provincia Pictorum ; " and it would seem that 
in his time the name Picts, or Pehts, had nearly superseded 
the older term Caledonii — derived from the Cymric Cclyddon y 
and this related to the generic Galatcz, Celtce, Galli. 

That the Picts were a branch of the Cymry, and the 
Scots immigrants from Ireland, 2 where the name Scoti 
originated, is to be considered as certain. The name 
"Picts " is of doubtful origin ; 3 but that the people who had 
probably pushed their way from the Cumbrian kingdom 
into the hilly regions of South Caledonia were Cymry in 
language is evidenced by the local names they impressed 
on that region, and also by the names of some of their later 
kings found in a MS. in the Colbertine library. "We find 
the words ben and pen used to designate mountains and 
eminences, as i?<?72-Nevis, i?<?7Z-Lomond ; and Peu-val is 
said by Bede to have been the Pictish name for a place at 
the " termination of the wall " of Antoninus. Now Ban 
and Pen are also Cymric words of like meaning, as seen in 

1 Neither Caesar nor Tacitus has any mention of Picts. Nor has 
Ptolemy or Dion Cassius. Eumenius's Oration to Constantius Chlorus, 
a.d. 296: " Solis. . . . Pictis modo et Hibernis adsueti hostibus," first 
brings forward their name in British history. They are alluded to 
repeatedly by Amra. Marcellinus. All details respecting the " Pictish 
question " are contained in Pinkerton, Chalmers, Ritson, Prichard, 
Grant, and Betham. 

2 Bede, Ecclcs. Hist. b. 1. c . 1. 

:i As the valley of the Loire {Liger) has strong claims as the former 
home of the Lloegrians, and probably also of the Brython, the name 
Picts leads us to favour the idea that these people last came from a part 
of the same region (now Poitou), where a tribe called Pictoncs are said 
to have dwelt. The only objection to this view is the statement of the 
Triad— that the Picts (Gwyddyl Fichti) came to Alban by the sea of 
Llychlyn (North Sea) ; but they might well have come to Britain by that 
Sea, and yet have previously dwelt in South-Western France, as well as 
have Scandinavia for their more ancient seat. 



THE PICTS AND SCOTS. 5 1 

Bangor, Banau (pi.), as B. Brycheiniog (the Brecknockshire 
Beacons), i^vzcader, P^maenmawr. The Pictish name 
Pen-val is pure Cymric in both its parts ; pen, top, head, 
extremity, and gzual (constr. state, wal) giving the significa- 
tion "wall's-head," or termination — the same as that of the 
Gaelic rendering of Pen-val, Cenail, [Cean, head, and f /mil, 
of the wall) the modern Kinneil. 

Bryneicli, the orignal of the Latin Bernicia, is probably a 
Pictish name. The Welsh etymology of the word is from 
bryn, a hill. In Fife are the Ochil Hills (Welsh, uchel> 
high). Cairngorm has many correspondences in Wales, as 
Cameo\o\ Llywelyn, Came&ti. Dafydd, Carneo\o\. y Filiast, 
Tiefgurn, &c. 

The register of Pictish kings from the fifth century down- 
wards contained in the Colbertine MS. gives several names 
which are Cymric : Taran (Welsh, taran, thunder) ; UVAN" 
— a slight modification of the Welsh Ievan, Ivan or Owen ; 
TALORG — Welsh, tal, high, as taken, 1 high part of the head, 
"forehead"; Talies'm ; local names, Talgarth, Talog ; 
Wrgwst — Welsh, Gwrgwst ; Drust — Welsh, Trzvst ; 
Drostan — Welsh, Trwstan, &c. 2 

The ^Noro\Aber, applied in Wales to a confluence of waters, 
whether of inland streams or of rivers and the sea, was 
used in Caledonia in a similar way. Many places once 
called abcrs in Scotland have been changed into Gaelic 
Invcrs {iribhir). No aber exists in Ireland. And it may be 
remarked that the word aber is used in modern Cymric not 
only as an historic local name but also as a word for haven, 
creek of the sea, &c, as aber Milford. The Triads say : " In 
Britain are three chief rivers, Thames, Severn and Humber, 

! The cen in this word is the Ir. and Gael, ccan, head. Lewis Glyn 
Cothi (circa. 1450) uses tal for "head": " A dawn Duw'n ilodau'n ei 
ddl." Works, p. no. Now obsolete. 

• See Garnett's Essays, p. 196, et scq. 

E 2 



52 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and one hundred and forty three chief abers." Many of the 
rivers in Scotland and Wales almost exactly agree in name 
The Tweed, Towy ; Tay, Tav; Dee, Dee; Clyde, Clwyd 
Nith, Nedd ; Avon, Avon ; Ayr, Aeron ; Esk, Wysg 
Teviot, Teivi, &c. 

The ancient topographical names of Caledonia, the 
country of the Picts, even of its northern parts, more 
nearly correspond with those of Wales than do those of 
Ireland, the early home of the Scots. Greater nearness of 
kinship is thus indicated. At the same time, the evidence 
of language, local names, traditions, history, combine to 
prove that all these countries were inhabited by people 
descending from the same great Celtic family, which may 
all be classed together as Ancient Britons. 

Now in conjecturing the causes of divergence of these 
Celtic languages no difficulty need be encountered. The 
process of change is obvious. Time and territorial separa- 
tion, as already shown, are elements amongst these causes. 
Another and main source of dissimilarity is the condition 
under which all unwritten language is propagated. 
Writing, and especially printing, powerfully aid in fixing 
and perpetuating the standard of a language. But in the 
absence of all such mechanical means, and when the eye 
had no agency in fixing the form of words and phrases, but 
all was transmitted phonetically, departure from the 
standard, if " standard " could be said to exist, would be 
facile and rapid. Variation imperceptibly introduced would 
form a " dialect." A dialect would soon grow into what 
would be termed a " language." Let an educated English- 
man from Suffolk or Essex enter any village smithy near 
" Ratchdaw " (Rochdale) or " Owdum " (Oldham), and he 
will hear a language he would by no amount of persuasion 
believe to be English. Let him employ an exact phonetic 
shorthand writer, and have the sounds which are uttered in 



THE LLOEGRIANS AND BRYTHON. 53 

his hearing faithfully represented on paper, and he will still 
be nearly as sceptical. " Fattle be i'th the foyar " has the 
looks of an outlandish tongue, but divested of contrac- 
tions and Lancashire articulation, assumes the homely garb 
of " the fat will be in the fire. 5 ' So of " Si geet oop bi 
shrike o dee, on seet eawt, on went ogreath tilly welly 
coomb within a moile oth teawn, when o tit wur stonning 
ot on ealheawse dur " : — So I got up by break of day, and 
set out, and went right on until I well nigh came within a 
mile of the town, when a mare was standing at an alehouse 
door. " Im wur off neaw in eer eh wur " : — I am worse off 
now than ever I was. 1 

Let only the peasantry of such a district as this emigrate 
into a distant region, after the manner of the nomades of 
ancient times, and soon their language will be as different 
from that of Kent as Breton is now from Cymric, or Erse 
from either of these. 

5. The Lloegrians and Brython. The Lloegrians, from 
whom is derived the modern Welsh name for England 
[Llocgr), a branch of the "Nation of the Cymry," came 
from South-Western France, the valley and region of the 
river Liger, modern Loire, and settled in the south and 
east of Britain. The Brython probably came from the 
same part of France, held the same relation to the " Nation 
of the Cymry," and settled in the North of England. These, 
in all probability, have their name still preserved in the 
common designation " Bretons. " But more of th? 
Lloegrians and Brython in the next sub-section, where we 
give the evidence of the Welsh Triads. 2 



1 See, Works of Tim Bobbin. Ed. 1862. Pp. 41, 83. 

2 The Welsh Triads, or Trioedd Ynys Prydain, are given in full in the 
Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales. Vols, ii and iii. 



54 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

(d.) The Welsh Triads on the early Settlers in Britain, and the identity 
of their origin. 

Whatever value may attach to the Triads as historic 
records, they are at least in many respects documents of 
great interest, and may be received even by the most 
hypercritical Wolfian as corroboratory cf other evidence. 
They are echoes and exponents to us of what the long lost 
records of Welsh history contained, and of the voice of 
ancient tradition. 

The Triads are clear and positive in according the first 
colonization of Britain to the Cymry (Cimbri). Triad First 
says : — " Three names have been given to the Isle of 
Britain from the beginning. Before it was inhabited it 
was called Clas Merddin, and afterwards Fel Ynys. When 
it was put under government by Prydain, son of Aedd the 
Great, it was called Inis Prydain (the Isle of Prydain), and 
there was no tribute paid to any but to the race of the 
Cymry, because they first possessed it, and before them no 
men dwelt in it, nor anything else except bears, wolves, 
beavers, and the oxen with the high prominence. " 

The fourth Triad contains the following : — " The three 
national pillars of the Isle of Britain : — First, Hu Gadarn 
(Hu the Mighty) who originally conducted the nation of the 
Cymry into the Isle of Britain. They came from the summer 
country which is called Deffrobani [where Constantinople 
now stands], and it was over the hazy sea [the German 
Ocean] that they came to the Isle of Britain and to Llydaw 
[Armorica, Bretagne] where they continued, Ike." 

The fifth Triad says : " The three honourable [addwyn) 
tribes of the isle of Britain : The first was the nation of the 
Cymry that came with Hu the Mighty into the isle of 
Britain, &c. The second was the tribe of the L.loegrmys y 
[Loegrians, Lignrians /] that came from the land of 
Gwasgwyn [Gascony ?] being descended from flic chief nation 



EVIDENCE OF THE WELSH TRIADS. 55 

of the Cymry. The third were the Brython, who came from 
the land of Armorica, having their descent from the primitive 
stock of the Cymry ; and they are called three tribes of 
peace, because they came by consent of each other in peace 
and quietness." l 

Now these Three Triads are categorical on the following 
heads : — 

1. That the first inhabitants of Britain were the Cymry. 

2. That the region whence they came was the "summer 
country,'"' and that their path was across the German 
Ocean. 

3. That the same people settled also in Armorica. 

4. That besides and after the Cymry, two other tribes, 
the Lloegrwys from Gwasgwyn, and the Brython from 
Armorica, came over. 

No attempt at chronology is here made, but an order of 
succession is plainly indicated. All the tribes are of one 
blood. The later comers settle, as if for consolidation, with 
the consent and friendship of the first possessors — the 
Cymry. Note also that the regions whence they came are 
those frequently mentioned by Roman historians as parts 
inhabited by the Celtse. In all this there is no tone of 
hypothesis, no hesitation in statement, no clashing with 
the utterances of authentic history. Avoiding, there- 
fore, the scepticism which is as hostile to the investigation 
of historic truth as the weakest credulity, we receive the 
Triad account as substantially worthy of reliance. 

Next comes a Triad which puts a little change upon the 
scene. The Cymry and their kinsmen the Lloegrwys and 
Brython were not to have it all their own way in the " isle 
of honey." Still, as yet, there are no hostile arrivals, but 
certain " refuge seeking " people from the far north, and 
from across the water. " The three refuge-seeking tribes 

1 Myv. Arch, of Wales, ii. 57. 



56 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

who came in peace, by consent of the nation of the Cymry, 
without weapon or attack : The first was the people of 
Celyddon in the north ; the second was the Gwyddelian 
tribe who dwell in Alban [the Highlands of Scotland] ; the 
third were the men of Galedin [Holland ?], who came in 
naked vessels to the Isle of Wight when their country was 
inundated, and where they had land assigned them by the 
nation of the Cymry ; they had no right of possession in the 
isle of Britain beyond the land and protection accorded to 
them under limits, and it was stipulated that the rights of 
the primitive Cymry should not be theirs until the end of 
the ninth generation." ' 

No intimation is given that these arrivals were of another 
race. They came as brethren seeking shelter when in 
distress, and were allowed, upon definite conditions, to settle 
down as part of the family of states. Who can doubt, 
therefore, that the regions of Caledonia (Celyddon), and 
Alban (the Highlands), were in these early times peopled 
by tribes the consanguinity of which with the Cymry was 
well known ? And who can fail to perceive that the names 
" Celyddon " and " Galedin " are cognate with Galata?, 
Celtae, and Galli ? As yet, then, we see that, according to 
the Triads, Britain, north and south, was inhabited by one 
single race. 

But now times of trial are coming. The seventh Triad 
relates that the ancestral estate is invaded by strangers. 
" The three invading tribes that came unto the isle of 
Britain, and never departed therefrom : 2 the first were the 
Coraniaid, who came from the country of Pwyl [Poland ? 
more probably some region of northern Germany] ; the 
second, the Gwyddyl Ffichti [Gaelic Picts], who came to 

1 My v. Arch, of Wales, ii. 57. 

2 In allusion to the Romans, &.C., who, when the Triad was written, 
had taken their departure. 



EVIDENCE OF THE WELSH TRIADS. 57 

Alban by the sea of Llychlyn ; ' third, the Saeson ^Saxons). 
The Coranians are situated about the river Humber, and the 
shores of the German Ocean ; and the Gwyddyl Ffichti are 
in Alban, on the shore of the sea of Denmark. The Coran- 
ians and the Saxons united, brought the Lloegrians into 
confederacy with them by violence and oppression, and 
afterwards took the crown of monarchy from the nation of 
the Cymry. Of the Lloegrians who did not become 
Saxons there only remain those who inhabit Cornwall and 
the Commot of Carnoban in Deira and Bernicia." 2 
The following remarks we subjoin : 

1. The events shadowed forth in these later Triads 
occurred after the departure of the Romans, and in Saxon 
times. 

2. Some, even of these "invading" tribes, are kinsmen 
to the Cymry. The " Gwyddyls" 3 are the people mentioned 
in a preceding Triad, as one of the peaceful refuge- 
seeking tribes, and come from the same region of " Alban." 
This reflection upon their character as intruders, therefore, 
must have reference to their first appearance from " the 
sea of Llychlyn," or to a change in their disposition and 
conduct in Saxon times, and after a long residence in the 
country. 

3. The "Coranians" who came from the country of Pwyl, 
supposed by some, as Edward Lhwyd, to mean Poland, 
are a people unknown in history. From the position of 
their settlement about the Humber, it is probable that their 
preceding home was North Germany or Denmark. The 

1 Llychlyn may be translated " the lake of pools," and would, therefore, 
be applicable to the inland waters of Denmark, opposite to which, in 
Alban, the Triad immediately afterwards locates them. 

3 My v. Arch, of Wales, ii. p. 58. 

3 Givyddel is probably the Cymric depravation of the name Gadhel=- 
Celt, borne by the more Westerly tribes. 



58 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Triad contains no intimation that the Coranians were of 
an alien race. They took possession by force, and after- 
wards conspired with the Saxons ; and this rendered them 
obnoxious. Had they been of an alien race, this would 
probably, under the circumstances, have been mentioned 
to their further discredit. 

4. The "Lloegrians," who also conspired with the Saxons, 
are said in the seventh Triad to be from Gwasgwyn, and 
were, therefore, if this region is in the south-west of France, 
of remoter connection, although of the same stock, with the 
nation of the Cymry, and hence more liable to be won over 
into confederacy with the " invaders," But if the Triad 
is correct in making* the people of Cornwall a remnant of 
them, they must have been nearly related to the Cymry, as 
the Cornish language sufficiently implies. 

The " Saxons " are the only intruders, hitherto enu- 
merated, certainly known to have been of Teutonic race 
and to have made good their stay in Britain. All others 
are either expressly claimed by the Triads as relations to 
the "nation of the Cymry," or are presumably such. 
Lloegrians, Brython, the people of Celyddon, the Gwyddelian 
tribe of Alban, the men of Galedin, are all relations and 
friends. The Coranians, though an invading tribe, are not 
said to be of alien race. The Gwyddyl Ffichti, another 
invading tribe, are certainly kinsmen. Saxons alone, there- 
fore, known by positive declarations of history to be 
strangers in blood, are in this Triad declared to be alien 
invaders of the country. 

We have accomplished this portion of our task. The 
substantial unity of race of the earl)- inhabitants of Britain 
has been shown. These multifarious tribes, all of one 
kindred, though arrived from different countries, across 
different seas, at different periods of time, we embrace 
under the one general designation Ancient Britoxs. 



THE CIVILIZATION OF THE BRITONS. 59 

Having done this much, we next proceed to give an 
estimate of their general condition, social and intellectual, 
with the view of establishing a priori the presumption, that 
such a people would not be bodily dislodged, much less 
utterly extirpated, but would continue on the soil, and 
enter into the new nationality established by their con- 
querors. 

SECTION 11. 

An estimate of the Social Cojidition and Civilization of the 
Britons at the time of the Roman Conquest. 

The early Greek and Roman historians — the only 
sources we are disposed here to rely upon — give but few and 
fragmentary accounts of the Ancient Britons ; and of these 
accounts we propose noticing only such as tend to show 
that the aborigines were by no means the low type of 
barbarians which ill-informed writers have too commonly 
represented them to be. They were as the poet, speaking 
from a Roman point of view, describes them : 

" Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos ;" ' 

but their life had still a connection with the greater life 
which pulsated on the continent. They were of the race 
which had captured Ancient Rome, had been led by 
Brennus, had foiled Mallius and Caepio. They had 
divers means of intercourse with distant peoples, and had 
received into their bosom and retained many of the attri- 
butes of the old Eastern civilization. 

(1.) Early Notices. 

What is said by Herodotus and Aristotle is of no weight. 
Festus Avienus, a writer of the fourth century, in a geo- 
graphical poem, furnishes a very interesting piece of 

1 Virgil Eclog. I. 



60 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

information, of the correctness of which we have no reason 
to doubt. Avienus, be it observed, wrote in the fourth 
century ; but his statements on the matter in hand relate 
to a time 700 years earlier. He says that in the fourth 
century before Christ, Himilco,the Carthaginian, penetrated 
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and surveyed the coast of 
Britain. Pliny, referring to the same vovage, assigns it to 
the time when Hanno explored the Western Coast of Africa, 
and when Carthage was at the height of its glory — 
" Carthaginis potentia norente." 

Now according to Himilco, what, at that early time, was 
the character of the Britons ? They were not the con- 
temptible barbarians, the painted savages, depicted by 
some of our " historians." They were " a numerous and 
powerful race, endowed with spirit, very dexterous, all busy 
with the cares of trade." 1 

Midway between Himilco and the Christian era, Polybius 
simply indicates the importance of Britain by remarking, 
that " many had already treated of the Britannic isles and 
the working of tin." 2 Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary 
of Caesar, says that the Britons in their wars, " used 
chariots, as the ancient Greek heroes are reported to have 
done in the Trojan war ; were simple in their manners, and 
far removed from the cunning and wickedness of men of 
the present day . . . that the island was thickly inhabited 

— etvai Se kcu iroXvavOpoiirov T-qv vrjaov — that those of Cornwall 

were particularly fond of strangers and civilized in their 

manners — (^(Aofevoi tc 8t.a(pep6vTU><; elal /cat Sta T)]V twv £eVcuv e/XTropoiv 
£ 7ri/u£i'av i$7][xcpa)ixevoi ras dycuyas — &TC. 

1 Ora Maritima. Ed. 1791. 

" Multa vis hie gentis est, 

Superbus animus, efficax sollertia, 
Negotiandi cura jugis omnibus." 

Vv. 98 — 100. 
2 Polyb. Hist. iii. 57. 3 Died. Sic. v. 21, 22. 



STRABO, CiESAR, TACITUS. 6 1 

Strabo, the geographer, describes the inhabitants in a 
still more picturesque way : They were " clad in black 
cloaks (ixeXdyx^oLLvol), with tunics (^trwvas) which reached to 
the feet, and girt about the breasts (e£woyxevoi) ; walking with 
staves in their hands (^era pdfiSuv TrepiTraToiWcs), and bearded 
like goats ; subsisting by their cattle, and leading for the 
most part a wandering (vo/m8iKws) life."i Strabo was no 
poet, but rather a matter-of-fact geographer, and yet this 
description gives the picture of a people far advanced 
in culture, and enjoying almost ideal happiness. 

(2). Cixsar and Tacitus. 

Caesar, in his account of Britain, speaks with the ill- 
concealed bias of a not very successful invader, and betrays 
on occasions very imperfect knowledge of his subject. He 
never saw far into the interior, for the very reason that the 
inhabitants were not the helpless barbarians he at times 
describes them, and of the Cymry especially he had no 
knowledge whatever. Be it observed that what is implied 
in some of Caesar's statements, and clearly expressed in 
others, takes off completely the edge of his most damaging 
descriptions. For example : Britain, he tells us, was well 
peopled, full of houses built after the manner of the Gauls; 
brass and gold money was used, and iron rings of a certain 
weight (in barter). 2 The men of Kent were the most civil- 
ized, differing but little from the Gauls. The greater part 
of those in the interior tilled not their land, but lived on 
flesh and milk, and were clad in skins — precisely the mode 

1 Gcogr. lib. iii. 5. It is generally allowed that Strabo by his KaTTirtpiSes, 
and Herodotus by his Katro-tWpioet, referred to the British Isles. 

2 De Dell. Gall. v. 10. On the "ring money" of the Celts, Comp. 
Sir W. Betham's paper read before the Royal Irish Acad., Dublin, 1836. 
On the text of Cassar, respecting the coin of the Britons, see further 
under (d) in this Section. 



62 THE PEDIGPvEE OF THE ENGLISH. 

of life, by the way, followed by the " more civilized " Gauls. 
Then comes the libel about a community of wives, which 
hostile critics have made ready use of, but which no fair 
and competent historian of our day for a moment believes. 1 
The position of woman and the respect paid to wedlock 
generally among the Ancient Britons sufficiently neutralize 
this unsupported assertion of Csesar. Individual cases 
might occur, but the custom could not prevail. 

But in addition to being workers in tin, coiners of money, 
smelters of iron, they were, even according to CaBsar him- 
self, possessed of great skill and courage in battle, were 
competent to manoeuvre with cavalry, and constructed a 
species of chariot-machines which did terrible execution 
among the Roman legions. " It evidently appeared," he 
somewhat unguardedly adds, " that our heavy-armed 
legions were no match for such an enemy." 2 

Tacitus seems to have had his doubts whether the first 
inhabitants of Britain had been " born of the soil" — in- 
digence — or were adventitious settlers. 3 This he considers 
a question lost in the mist of antiquity — an indirect testi- 
mony of value, it may be remarked, to the remote origin of 
the Britons, and their long occupancy, even then, of the 
island. He considers them generally similar to the Gauls 
— which they might well be since they were a kindred 
people ; but he ascribes to them the superiority in energy 
and courage — qualities which the Gauls, after once posses- 
sing, had, through the loss of liberty, lost. 4 So independent, 

1 De Bell. Gall. v. 14. " Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se 
communes, et maxime fratres cum fratribus, parentesque cum liberis ; 
sed, si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur liberi, quo primum virgo 
qutcque deducta est." 

- Ibid, v, 16. 3 Vita. Agric. xi. 

4 It is difficult to know on what ground, in the face of Tacitus's 
testimony, Makintosh could describe the Britons as generally inferior 
to the Gauls. Hist, of Engl. i. 14. 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT. 63 

fierce and obstinate were the Britons, that had there only- 
existed among them union and concert, they might have 
baffled the Roman power to the last ; but wanting mutual 
confidence and coherence, when attacked by the foe, they 
fought separately, and were thus subdued. 1 

Tacitus confesses that though in the time of Agricola (circ. 
A.D. 80) the Britons were conquered, they were not even then 
disheartened ; they were reduced to obedience but not to 
bondage. He adds that even Julius Cassar, the first of the 
Romans who had set foot in Britain at the head of an 
army, could only be said by a successful battle to have 
made himself master of the sea-shore. Having failed to 
conquer the island, he only, as a discoverer, made it known 
to others who came after him. Rome could not boast of a 
conquest. 2 How much is here implied ! 

(3.) Organisation and Government. 

It has been pronounced useless to inquire what form of 
government prevailed among a people so low in culture. 
This is taking for granted the thing to be proved. They 
were low enough in culture, doubtless, when judged by the 
standard of to-day ; but it has not been proved that they 
were so low in culture that organization, government, 
salutary customs, and a strict moral code, did not exist 
among them. 

We have the authority of Cassar, amongst others, for 
saying that the Britons' form of Government was monar- 
chical. They had as many as four kings in Kent alone. 3 
The power of the king was tempered by an element of 
popular right exercised in public assembly, and by the 
influence of the Druidic priesthood. This indicates 

1 Vit. Agric. xii. - Ibid. xiii. 

'■■ Dc Bell. Gall. v. 22. 



64 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

organization, subordination of states, checks and counter- 
checks — the results of experience and wisdom. That the 
states were small is no argument against the fact of 
government. The kings of the Britons were not tyrants, 
military adventurers, hap-hazard products of revolution, 
but, in the main, hereditary sovereigns, governing by force 
of public law. 

The influence of the Druids in the conduct of public 
affairs, whatever may be thought in our day of their 
superstitions, argues the subjection of the popular mind to 
the governance of religious ideas ; and if we are to judge 
of the quality of the Druidic teaching from the ethical 
maxims of the Triads, the guidance received from this 
quarter could scarcely be otherwise than salutary. 

(4.) The Arts of Civilized Life. 

The above remarks naturally suggest the inquiry, how 
far those arts and usages which we generally associate 
with the term civilization, and are considered to rescue a 
people from a state of barbarism, had a place among the 
Ancient Britons. If our expectations be moderate, as they 
ought to be, we shall not be disappointed. The Britons, in 
Caesar's time, had some knowledge of the arts of life. They 
were not barbarians. Were they semi-barbarians ? 

Skill in warlike tactics and in the construction of war 
implements is not, we admit, the best exhibition of know- 
ledge ; but it yet remains skill, and is evidence of culture 
of a certain sort, however ill applied — otherwise what 
becomes of our boastful modern civilization one of whose 
main and most costly developments is concerned in it ? 
This culture to a considerable extent the Britons had, and 
Caesar was bitterly convinced of the fact. 

What was better, they were industrious, devoted to 
"trade." A tribe, however obscure, was never yet touched 



THE BRITONS COINERS OF MONEY. 65 

with the ncgotiandi cur a ascribed to the Britons, but that it 
entered thereby the school of civilization. Four hundred 
years before Christ, or thereabouts, the Britons were found 
by Himilco to be adepts in the matter. They were " fond 
of strangers" — a sign that they were either in a helplessly 
early state of national childhood, or advanced beyond that 
condition of barbarian life where strangers are deemed as 
enemies. In Caesar's time, they were workers in metals ; 
coiners of a kind of money ; builders of houses like those 
of Gaul ; lived in entrenched towns and villages, and 
worshipped in colossal, though rude and mysterious, 
temples, which time itself seems incapable of demolishing. 
Caesar testifies — not surely with the object of exalting his 
own skill in taking it — that the capital of Cassivellaunus 
(Caswallon) was admirably defended — cgregie munztum. 1 
The Britons' skill in fortification is evidenced by the 
remains of their great works which continue to this day, 
ex. gr. the dun or dinas called the Cattcrduns in Scotland, 
Chun Castle and Caer-bran in Cornwall, the camp on the 
Malvern Hills, Caer Caradoc in Shropshire, Tynwald in the 
Isle of Man. 2 

But a word further on the account given by Caesar con- 
cerning the kind of money used by the Ancient Britons. 
The text which reads, " brass money and iron rings," <kc, 
is allowed to be corrupt. Mr. Hawkins, having examined 
and collated all the MSS. of Caesar within his reach in 
England and on the Continent, states that they all give the 
reading thus : " Utuntur aut aere aut nuramo aurco, aut 
annulis ferreis at certum pondus examinatis pro nuramo." 
"They (the Britons) use either brass or gold coin, or iron 
rings, suited to a certain weight, for money." This is a 

1 Dc Bell. Gall. v. 21. 

2 Confer Monumcnta Antiqua, vol. i. p. 27; Meyrick's Origin. Itthab., 
p. 7 ; Camden, Gough's Ed., i. 700. 



66 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

most important correction, and gives fair ground for the 
belief that brass and gold coins were in use among the 
Britons before Caesar's arrival. 

The compiler of the important work issued by the Master 
of the Rolls, says, with respect to this question, " The 
existence of a large number of coins found in various parts 
of the island (the types and fabric of some of which are 
unlike any which have been discovered in other countries, 
and have all the appearance of being some centuries older 
than Julius Caesar's first expedition into Britain) appears 
greatly to support the opinion that the Britons were 
acquainted with and practised the art of coining previously 
to that event. . . If the Britons refused to take foreign money 
(as Solinus states) . . . and coins considerably older than 
Julius Caesar's invasion are found in the island, the money 
so found must have been coined in the national mints 

of this country The reign of Cunobelin may be 

considered as the time when British coins reached their 
highest perfection." l Nine of the coins of Tasciovanus, 
supposed to be the father of Cunobeline (Cynfelin), and 
fifty-three of the coins of the latter, some of them showing 
delicate workmanship, are figured in Plate I. Most of them 
are to be seen in the British Museum. The most important 
work by far which has yet appeared on the ancient British 
coinage is that of Mr. Evans, where the Britons' knowledge 
of the art of coining is clearly proved. A large number of 
the British coins are illustrated and described in this work, 
and it is shown that the Monumenta Catalogue is very 
incomplete. 2 

1 Monumenta Historica Britannica ; or, Materials for the History of 
England from the Earliest Period. Published by command of Her 
Majesty. London, 1S4S. P. cli. See also the Coins of the Romans 
relating to Britain, by J. G. Akerman, London, 1S36, and Birch's Dissert, 
on Coins of Cunobeline. (Nuinis. Soc.) 

- The Coins of the Ancient Britons, by J. Evans, F.R.S., F.S.A., &c. 



EVIDENCE OF BARROW-TOMBS, ETC. 67 

That the arts of life had been considerably developed 
among the Ancient Britons has been very unexpectedly 
illustrated within recent } r ears by the opening of barrow- 
tombs. Proofs of skill in the manipulation of pottery are 
found in drinking cups, incense dishes, cinerary urns, of 
graceful forms, found in these sacred receptacles. Gold 
ear-rings, ornaments of amber set in gold, beads of curious 
construction have been discovered. 1 The bossed shields, 
the flat circular shields with metal coatings in the Goodrich 
Court Collection, 2 and the celebrated golden breast-plate, 
embossed with beautiful figuring, discovered near Mold, 3 
all testify to superior knowledge in the metallic arts. 

We thus go to the tombs of the dead to read the history 
and know the habits and acquirements of the living. The 
depositions here made are those of impartial witnesses, 
whom no prejudice can bias, no sophistry baffle. The great 
fortresses in which they dwelt, many of their majestic 
temples, like their weapons of war and tools of handicraft, 
have passed into oblivion ; bur the repositories of their 
ashes and calcined bones have been proof against the decay 
of time, and preserved for us more of the history — the 
history of the internal life — of the people than of their 
mortal remains. We might distrust or lightly hold the 
glowing portraiture of the British bard, or the wondrous 
later legend of the romancer, and repose but qualified faith 
in the Greek or Roman annalist ; but the characters written 

1 Comp. Hoare's Ancient Witshire, passim. 

2 See Archosologia, vol. xxiii. p. 95. 

8 This interesting relic is at the British Museum. That the Britons 
were highly skilled in the designing and casting of bronze spear-heads 
is proved by the contents of various collections of antiquities. In the 
small temporary Museum of the Cambrian Archaeological Association 
at Knighton, 1873, a few British bronzes of this class, newly discovered 
in excavations, were exhibited, which gave evidence of remarkable 
taste in design and manufacture. 

F 2 



68 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

on the walls of the solemn mausoleum are faithful, and 
when read amid its deep and monitory silence, sink with 
conviction into the mind. 

It is of interest to notice the " imports " and " exports," 
such as they were, of the Ancient Britons. " Painted 
savages" — the reader of school histories will say — "what 
could they know of transactions only befitting Liverpool or 
London r" But let us see. The plain Britons, it may be 
granted, had no deep knowledge of trade-lists and prices 
current ; but neither had we ourselves five hundred years 
ago. At that time Liverpool consisted of a few fishermen's 
huts, and London itself was a small collection of straggling 
wooden tenements. If we are to believe Strabo, these 
people carried on a good trade with the Romans 1 — sending 
their produce to the continent, and receiving back such 
articles as they needed. Of course he speaks of their 
commerce at a period anterior to the Roman Conquest, and 
when, therefore, their ideas of trade and of luxury, and 
skill in working in metals and pottery had not been 
heightened by contact with this new instructor. Strabo 
enumerates among the goods exported from Britain, gold, 
iron, silver, corn, cattle, skins, fleeces, dogs ; and among 
the imports, ivory, bridles, gold chains, cups of amber, 
drinking-glasses, &c. — all articles suitable to a people whose 
ideas were somewhat advanced beyond the brass buttons 
and glass beads so much in demand among savage 
tribes. 

The personal ornaments of Britons of the better class 
were tasteful and costly. The Gauls are said to have been 
fond of dress ((faXoiwa^ovf, and to wear gold collars around 
their necks and arms. 3 The Gauls were now not savages, 
and their ornaments were not mere flaring tinsel. Now the 

1 Geog. lib. iii. 197, 239 ; lib. iv. 27S. ~ Ibid. iv. 197. 
;i Livy, vii. 10. 



PERSONAL ORNAMENTS. 69 

custom observed by the " civilized Gauls" was precisely 
the custom which prevailed in Britain — in the kingdom of 
Cumbria, and doubtless in Wales, even down to Saxon 
times. 1 Merddin Wyllt, in his poem," the A vallcnau (circ. A.D. 
580), says, " In the battle of Arderydd I wore the golden 
torques f and LlywarchHen, the prince bard, bewailing the 
desolation of family and country (circ. A.D. 620}, says : — 

" Four and twenty sons I have had, 
Wearing the golden wreath, leaders of armies." 2 

Dion Cassius informs us that five hundred years before 
this time, Boadicea wore such a collar of gold. The poet 
Aneurin in his Gododiu, describes the march of three 
hundred and sixty-three warriors thus decorated into 
the battle of Cattraeth. 

Golden torques were given at a later time as prizes of 
skill and valour ; and the phrase, ckvyn y dorch, " to win the 
torque," is to this day to be heard in Wales for winning 
any prize, although the rings themselves have long ago 
disappeared, and the historic allusion is not comprehended. 

(5.) Intellectual Culture. 

A still better proof of " civilization " is furnished by in- 
tellectual development and culture. Trade in degree argues 
culture ; certain luxuries and refinements of life argue the 
same ; but there are positive exhibitions of it which are still 
more conclusive. The Druidical system was one of 

1 The Welsh "golden torques" found at Harlech in 1C92 are de- 
scribed and illustrated in Camden. See Gough's Ed. 
- " Pcdwar meib ar ugaint a'm bu, 
Eurdorchawg, tywysawg llu." 
The date of the above poems, of course, is questioned, but this is a 
point not requiring discussion here. The custom is known to be ancient, 
and is conceded. And it may be observed, in passing, that no competent 
adverse criticism of the age of the Welsh Poems has yet appeared. 



70 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

elaborate regulation, of stringent discipline. It is impos- 
sible to read Caesar's account of the Druids of Gaul, without 
allowing that it presents an order of teachers — waiving all 
consideration of their religious doctrines and rites — whose 
sphere of thought was comprehensive and lofty, and whose 
method was adapted to stimulate and enrich the intellect. 1 
But Caesar also states that Britain, and not Gaul, was the 
proper and high seat of Druidism, and that those who 
wished to be perfect in the system, travelled to Britain for 
instruction. 2 An eminent modern historian says that the 
Druidic superstition took refuge in Britain in preference to 
Gaul, in order to find a more congenial home amongst the 
" blindest votaries," and to "fly from the scrutiny of civilized 
and inquiring men." It is rather strange that " the civilized 
and inquiring men " of Gaul should send their sons to 
be educated amongst the blindest votaries, and it is to be 
remembered that the country of these civilized and inquir- 
ing men was itself a Druidic country. Caesar, who is acknow- 
ledged to be the best authority on this matter — summits 
auctorum divus Julius, as Tacitus calls him — puts probably 
the true construction upon the circumstance. The Gauls 
w T ho wished to be perfect in the system of Druidism — the 
only system of Celtic intellectual culture then in vogue — - 
went to Britain for instruction. Now, the people who thus 
supplied the best teaching, may fairly be considered as 
being themselves the most cultivated. 3 

1 De Bell. Gall. lib. vi. 13. Comp. Strabo, lib. iv. 4. Pomp. Mela Ds 
Lit. Orb. iii. 2. Diod. Sic. lib. v., Strabo and Pomp. Mela apparently 
only copy Coesar. 

2 De Bell. Gall. lib. vi. 13. 

3 Pliny says of the Druidic teaching: — "But why should I com- 
memorate these things respecting an art which has passed over the sea 
and reached the bounds of nature ? Britain, even at this time, celebrates 
it with so many wonderful ceremonies that she seems to have taught it 
to the Persians." Book xxx. 



INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF THE DRUIDS. 71 

It would be instructive to inquire into the intellectual 
and moral aspects of Druidism, as a great national force 
and stimulant — force and stimulant, we mean, of a mental 
and contemplative kind, quite consistent with, if not indeed 
conducive to, inefficiency in warlike conflict when opposed 
to odds such as the Romans presented. Into this question 
at length we cannot enter. But certain principles implied 
in Caesar's description may be briefly noticed as we pass. 
Young men, we are told, were kept under the care of the 
Druids, sometimes as long as twenty years. So great was 
the care taken in instruction — so great the work to be done. 
Instruction was imparted orally, and all had to be com- 
mitted to memory. This indicates, not merely initiation 
into an esoteric system of doctrine, kept unwritten^ the 
better to protect it from vulgar gaze — but also great speci- 
ality and minuteness of indoctrination. 

A method so purely mnemonic, would, as a matter of 
course, employ artificial means, such as rhythmical formulae, 
both to facilitate attainment and retention. Now there are 
signs of the descent of such a system in the early poetry as 
well as prose of the Britons. Probably alliteration in 
poetry, and the Triad form in prose, are nothing less than 
the remains of the Druidic mnemonic system. The Ice- 
landic poets used alliteration early, as shown by Percy ; 
it is found among the Finns and among the Tamul tribes 
of India ; early Latin Church hymns display it ; and the 
Anglo-Saxon English practised it in the middle ages, as 
seen in Caedmon and Piers Plowman : but nowhere did it 
exist so early, nowhere has it obtained so rank a growth, 

1 That a certain class of knowledge was kept unwritten argues the 
existence of writing for general purposes. That the art was known to 
the Britons is beyond doubt. Caesar says (De Bell. Gall. iv. 13) that 
the Druids of Gaul practised writing, using Greek characters (Gnccis 
utantur Uteris). But if in Gaul, a fortiori, they did so in Britain, the 
chief seat of their authority and learning. 



72 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

as in Wales ; and nowhere else lias it continued to the 
present time in all its extremest grotesqueness. 

Piers Plowman 's Vision was written so late as the 1 4th 
century, and is about the best specimen in early English 
of a poem composed on the alliterative principle, displaying 
also an imperfect terminal rhyme ; but how undeveloped its 
alliteration and its rhyme, when compared with those of 
the much earlier Welsh ! 

" In a somer season | when hot was the sonne 
I s/zope me into s/zroubs | as I a s/zepe were, 
In Aabit as an /zarmet [ un/zoly of werkes 
Went wide in this world | wonders to heare." 

This is Piers Plowman. But seven hundred years before 
this was written (allowing the earlier age ascribed to the 
Welsh poems to be correct), we find in Aneurin, along with 
terminal rhyme, such complex alliteration throughout the 
verse as this : 

" Oeawc cynnyviaz 1 cyvlat erwyt 
Rhuthyr eryr yn y lyr pan /ythiwyt 

Hyder gymmell ar vreithdl uanawyt 
Ny nodi nag ysgeth nag j'sgwyt." 

The poet Golyddan, assigned to the 6th century, and 
writing a language so primitive as to be as completely 
unintelligible to a Welshman of to-day as to an English- 
man, writes thus : 

" Dysgogan awen dyg-obryssyn 
Marchann^z 7 ^ a meuedd a hedd genhyn 
A phennaeth ehelaeth a ffvacth unbyn 
A gwedy dyhedd anhedd y;;zhob wehyn 
Gwyv gwych. yn tvydar casnar dengyn 
TLsgud yngnoiitd ryhyd diffyn 

Gwaethl gwyr hyt gaer Wair gzvasgarawdd Ellmyn 
Cwnahawn ^orfoledd givedy gwehyn" &c. 

Perhaps the prettiest specimen of alliteration in this 
early age is in another part of the same poem : 



ALLITERATIVE ART. 7 J 

" Cyneivcheid, cyne'ilwcid, unrhaith czcyiiyn ! 
Un gor, un gyngoy, un eisorynt." 
Let them (the Cymry) be summoned, called together, rise unanimous ! 
They have one heart, one judgment, one common cause. 

In the 12th century Cynddelw makes a further advance : 

" DRAGon o dwyr&g draig dwyra.\n 
Draig wen o//ewiN well y dichwain 
Oed CLEudaer oed cl&cv CLEdyf uch gwain 
A llinon yg gnif a //afnae llain 
Llafn yn llaw a llaw yn llad pennain 
Llaw ar lla/» ar llafn ar llu nordmain 
Ac eryfoed trwm rag tremyd angen," &c. 

All this at last culminated in the Pedwar Mesur ar 
Hugain (the Four-and-Twenty Metres — most appropri- 
ately called Caethion — "bondage metres") of the 14th 
century, which are still in force among the " poets " of 
Wales, and despite their prettinesses and the consonantal 
jingle which delights the bards, operate so disastrously 
upon the genius of the country. 1 

This has been the case with respect to alliteration. If 
we enquire into the use of terminal rhyme by the early 
Welsh poets, the result will be similar. Archbishop 

1 Of this one specimen will suffice — an "Englyn" by the late Mr. 
Davies, called Bavdd Naiitglyn — one of the most accomplished and 
•"legitimate" of Welsh poets. The subject is the balloon. A transla- 
tion, not our own, but taken from Ccinion Awcn y Cymmry, is added, 
from which an idea may be formed of the " regular" poetry of the 
Principality. The numbers and letters mark corresponding consonants. 

" Awyren, bf.uvz, glud BALi — DRWY CKwa 
1 2 3 1 2 3 ab c 

Derch hynt hyd wybrcni ; 
a b c 
Nwyfwib long, ban nawf, heb //, 
1 2 .3 4 1234 

A llaw dyn yn llyw daiii." 
1 23 1 23 
Trans. — " That air-filled body, the Balloon, a silken vehicle, by a blast, 
View soaring on its course through ethereal regions ; 
As a ship oflivcly range, aloft it swims, without a Hood, 
Having for a guide the hand of man beneath." 



74 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Trench acknowledges that the Welsh used final rhyme as 
early as the 6th century. 1 The Latins, as early as Ennius, 
Virgil, and Ovid, display an occasional terminal rhyme, 
perhaps accidental, as in Virgil : 

Necnon Tarquinium ejectum Porsena jubebat 
Accipere, ingentique urbem obsidione premebat. 

And in Horace : 

Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles 
Mandentur juveni partes, pueroque viriles. 

But rhyme came into prominence in the Latin language 
at a much later period, and as a substitute for the old 
metres which in the Greek and Roman poets depended on 
quantity Durandus 2 has shown that its use as an aid to 
memory was early taken advantage of in the calendar and 
offices of the Church. Early in the 12th century, in the 
Latin hymns of Adam St. Victor, Abelard — natives, by 
the way, of Brittany — St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of 
Clugny, &c, terminal rhyme became an essential element. 
But it has been shown above how, many centuries before 
this, the Cymric poets had used it, and Guest 3 has come to 
the conclusion that in all probability the Latins received 
rhyme from the Celtic race. The truth seems to be that it 
grew up simultaneously among different peoples, but that 
its quickest growth was among'st the Celts, and especially 
the Cymry of Wales. 

That the Triad is a relic of the Druidic system is, to say 
the least, probable. It bears the guise of antiquity, and 
its form is well adapted for the memory. Its quality of 
threefoldness, expressed in its name, may intimate a 
Platonic or a Christian origin. The language, however, 

1 Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 39. 2 Rationale Divin. Off., i. S. 

3 Hist, of English Rhythms. 



DRUIDIC TEACHING — THE TRIADS. 7 5 

in which the Triads have come down to us, has received a 
modern complexion from recent copyists. 

Now we think that none will deny, after examination, 
that these interesting remains contain a fund of human 
wisdom quite extraordinary for the early times when they 
are supposed to have originated. They display a style of 
thought at once analytic, acute, speculative, discursive, 
practically ethical, sympathetic towards man, reverent 
towards the Deity. Their psychology and morals savour 
more of the Pythagorean and Platonic than of the Aris- 
totelic. They deal familiarly with the loftiest forms of 
thought without losing sight of daily human concerns. 
Not unfrequently on the principle that 

" . . . . Brevity is the soul of wit, 
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes," 

they exhibit wonderful terseness and concentration of idea 
and expression. They also show by frequent peculiarities 
of opinion and phraseology acquaintance with the Greek 
writers, and occasionally with the Roman. That some of 
them should be embodiments of Biblical truths — which is 
the fact — is natural. Whatever relation they bore to the 
Druidical institution, in passing down the stream of ages 
they have become somewhat tinged with the systems of 
thought they encountered on the way. They have been 
shaped, in a measure, to meet the temper of times and 
faiths, and thus have exchanged the theology of Druidism 
for that of Christianity. 

Be this as it may, we take the Triads as a fair index to 
the type of mind dominant among the Cymry in ancient 
times, and especially in the Early Middle Ages, and to the 
social and moral condition of those subject to the principles 
they enshrine. Thought stands at the head of all affairs, 
and a people into whose minds great and pure thoughts 
have been ingrained, cannot be a weak and contemptible 



76 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

people. Low as the condition of the multitude may be, if 
1 n the governing few there is intelligence, the whole com- 
munity will be under guidance to high ends, and will more 
or less receive the inspiration of wisdom. 

" Rex noster animus est," 

is the universal confession of mankind, and in so far as 
history affords any utterance in the matter, its one testimony 
is, that the Druids were not merely severe disciplinarians, 
but that their superior knowledge and high character 
"warranted the exercise of authority, and that this authority 
on the whole was wielded for the individual and public 
weal. 

If the reader is inclined to take the Welsh Triads now 
existing as remote reflections of the Druidic teaching, well 
and good. If he is not, he will at least take them as faith- 
ful exponents of the condition of intellectual culture among 
the Welsh people at an early time in the middle ages — for 
.this they are allowed by all competent judges to be. This 
is all we claim for them. 

Let the following serve as examples of the Triads : — 

By three things shall a person be quickly known : by what he likes, 
by what he dislikes, and by such as like or dislike him. 

The three characteristics of godliness : to do justice, to love mercy, 
.and to behave humbly. 

Three things which cannot be brought under discipline of strict law 
and order: love, genius, and necessity. 

Three things that are honourable in a man : to have courage in 
.adversity, to observe moderation in prosperity, and piously to conduct 
'himself in both. 

The three points in goodness : wisdom, fortitude, and love; and where 
those three are not found together, good qualities cannot be expected. 

Three things that discover a man's disposition and principles: his 
'eye, his speech, and his actions. 

With three things a man ought to purpose all good actions and know- 
ledge: with all love, with all understanding, and with all ability. 

Three things that, from being rightly understood, will cause peace 



EXAMPLES OF THE TRIADS. 77 

and tranquillity: the course of nature, the claims of justice, and the 
voice of truth. 

There are three actions which are divine : to succour the poor and fee- 
ble, to benefit an enemy, and courageously to suffer in the cause of right. 

The three efficiencies of all things from the beginning: necessity, 
choice, and chance; and from one or other of these doth come and is 
done everything. 

The three necessities of the Being of God : essence, life, and motion ; 
and from these are all substance, life, and motion, by inchoation, i.e., 
from God and his essence are all things whatsoever. 

The three priorities of being — which are the three necessities of 
Deity: power, knowledge, love ; and from the union of these three are 
force and existence. 

The three foundations of wisdom : youth to learn, memory to retain 
what is learned, understanding to put it rightly in practice. 

Now it is by no means necessary to argue that the whole 
mass of the early Britons were familiar with sentiments 
like these, in order to entitle them to exemption from the 
charge of being " barbarians." In what nation, in what 
age have the masses been so happily conditioned r Were 
they so in Greece when Plato taught, when Praxiteles 
all but made the marble breathe ? Were they so in Rome 
when her legions ruled the world ? Were they so in England 
when our Miltons and our Addisons wrote ? Are they so 
in England now ? 

It is to be remembered that the wisdom of the Triads, be 
its value what it may, was not, in later ages at least, esoteric. 
Its depositaries were the bards. The bards were popular 
teachers through minstrelsy, song, and recitation. The 
retainers of every lord and prince of the land were pupils 
of the castle bard and genealogist, and the wisdom he 
happened to possess was freely imparted to them all. We 
are now referring to times less remote than the Roman 
Conquest ; but there is reason to suspect that in very ancient 
times, before the Roman ever trod on our soil, the Cymry, 
as indeed many other ancient nations, had their popular 
bardic and minstrel institution. 



78 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Having thus in some measure stretched forward our view 
of British civilization and intelligence beyond the Roman 
period, let us now for a moment recur to the earlier epoch, 
.and here first direct attention to a class of infiuencies con- 
nected essentially with Druidic teaching not yet touched 
upon : we mean the religions. Of course, many of the 
theological dogmas of the Druids were erroneous — many 
of their rites, although their grossness and cruelty have 
Toeen sadly exaggerated, would be in our day revolting. At 
the same time they taught elevating doctrines, stimulated 
the moral nature to heroic efforts after virtue, fixed the 
imaginative Celtic mind on things enduring and spiritual. 
•Caesar shows that they taught the immortality of the soul. 
Amm. Marcellinus tells us that they believed the human 
spirit was to exist in another world. Diogenes Laertius 
comprises their religious doctrines under three precepts : 
to worship the gods, to do no evil, and to act with courage. 
There is no reason for doubting that their doctrine con- 
cerning the Deity was monotheistic — identical, in fact, 
with the doctrine of Plato. Such teaching must have 
•exerted a mighty influence on the popular mind. Lucan, 
in his Pharsalia, thus acknowledges the fact : 

" And you, O Druids, free from noise and arms, 
Renewed your barbarous rites and fearful charms. 
What gods, what powers in happy mansions dwell, 
Or only you, or all but you, can tell. 
To secret shades and unfrequented groves 
From world and cares your peaceful tribe removes, 
You teach that souls, eased of their mortal load, 
Nor with grim Pluto make their dark abode, 
Nor wander in pale troops along the silent flood, 
But on new regions cast, resume their reign, 
Content to govern earthly frames again. 
Thus death is nothing but the middle line, 
Betwixt what lives, will come, and what has been. 
Happy the people by your charms possessed ! 
Nor fate, nor fears disturb their peaceful breast ; 



THE BRITONS NOT EXTIRPATED. 79 

On certain dangers unconcerned they run, 
And meet with pleasure what they would not shun ; 
Defy death's slighted power, and bravely scorn 
To spare a life that will so soon return." 

Let the ennobling influences of the Druidic Religion be 
added to the facts and considerations already enumerated. 
Do not all these together amount to more then we claim 
for them r Do they not present the Ancient Britons as a 
people free, industrious, ingenious, spirited, with superior 
knowledge of the arts, working in metals, commercially 
enterprising, ready to welcome strangers, holding intimate 
communication with the continent, subsisting in small 
kingdoms, each under its hereditary sovereign, proving their 
respect for woman by entitling her to the throne, and so far 
advanced in intellectual, religious, and general culture,, that 
the Gauls sent their sons to Britain for the most advanced 
education, especially in that higher department of wisdom 
officially presided over by the Druids ? These, and many 
other equally notable features in their character and condi- 
tion, we learn, not from the pens of their own historians, 
much less from the fervid imagination of their poets, but 
from Greek and Roman annalists whose words on all other 
matters are received with respect. We therefore conclude 
that in the Ancient Britons are found a people greatly 
removed from barbarism, and that for hundreds of years 
before Caesar's arrival they had been marked by the same 
characteristics. To represent them as our popular and 
unenquiring historical writers have usually done is to belie 
history, travesty facts, and do a manifest and gratuitoi 5 
injustice to a brave people. 

Is it not, therefore, fair to argue, a priori, that such 1 
people, if conquered, would be conquered only in 011 
— as Rome was conquered by the Goths, and France by the 
Franks — by being deprived of territory and Government f 



80 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Failing of victory in the field, they would still conquer 
for themselves, as the Gauls did in France, a position in 
the new community which arose upon the ruins of their 
own political and social existence. To destroy them 
bodily were impossible. Their expatriation we know was 
not contemplated by the Romans, who only wanted rule and 
tribute. "We argue that it was not done or attempted by 
their Anglican and Saxon conquerors. To commit suicide 
they never attempted, but quite the reverse ! A love of 
life, individual and national, was their passion. And if 
ever people clung with almost prseternatural strenuousness 
to their native soil, language, customs, name, and all that 
human independence would call its own — that people were 
the Ancient Britons, more especially in the Cymric section 
of them. To suppose that such a race should vanish, be- 
cause their political existence ceased, were to judge in 
contravention of all the evidence, as well as of common 
sense. The erection of the empire of Charlemagne extin- 
guished not the Gallic blood of France. The British rule in 
India will not extirpate the Hindoo race. Nay, the Anglo- 
Saxons themselves were not all put to the sword, or driven 
into the sea by the Danes, or subsequently by the Normans, 
though completely conquered by both. Why, therefore, 
arbitrarily stipulate that events must happen differently in 
the case of the Ancient Britons ? 

Our next step will be to furnish a bird's-eye view of the 
various conquests of Britain, presenting as distinctly as pos- 
sible in brief space the contrasted strength of invaders and 
invaded, and carefully distinguishing between the founding 
of new governments and the destruction or replacement of 
peoples. 



Part II. 



PART II. 



The Invasions of Britain: 
The Elements of Admixture accumulating- 
Admixture commencing. 




[RITAIN, which through various fortunes has at last 
fought her way to inviolable liberty and peace, 
and become the asylum of the oppressed of all 
lands, was herself for a thousand years the prey and sport 
of strangers. She excited the cupidity, now of imperial 
Rome, now of the lawless rovers of the German and 
Scandinavian Seas, now of the warlike and more chivalrous 
Normans of France. How in those rude twilight ages the 
mysterious virtues of this Fel Yuys, this "eye of the world," 
this " masterpiece of nature " became so widely known, it is 
hard to say ; but, in the absence of any but the most im- 
perfect means of locomotion by land or water, the fame of 
this Ultima Thule seems to have reached, before the 
Christian Era, almost all the tribes and nations of Europe, 
and many of them elected to quit their fatherlands to seek 
a better inheritance on her shores. Then, as now, her 
climate, as Tacitus describes it, was marred by frequent 
rains, and an overcast sky — (caelum crebris imbribus ac 

G 2 



84 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

nebulis fcedum), her shores were rugged, her seas stormy. 
Nothing signified. Many an adventurous land and sea 
captain, with or without the rights ascribed to Brutus by 
our imaginative Geoffrey, heard a Diana, as clearly as Brutus 
heard her, say : — 

" . . . . there lies beyond the Gallic bounds 
An island, which the western sea surrounds, 
By giants once possessed ; now few remain 
To bar thy entrance or obstruct thy reign. 
To reach that happy shore thy sails employ," &c. 

And so it came to pass that century after century, wave 
after wave of incursion beat, like the billows of her seas, on 
her devoted strands. Whether we listen to the plain state- 
ments or the implications of classic history, or to the glowing 
utterances of myth and fable — they all alike echo the 
splashing of oars and the clash of weapons of invading 
hosts, or, on occasions, the friendly greeting of flocking 
cognate tribes. They come, and crowd from the four 
quarters of the heavens — from the mysterious Deffrobani, 
the summer country, from sunny Gascony, from " Pwyl," 
from the marshes of the Lower Rhine, from Armorica, 
Northern and Eastern Gaul, from rugged and inhospitable 
Scandinavia — nay, the isle of Britain even excites the 
ambition of great Rome herself, and she empties her coffers, 
pours forth the blood of her best legions, consumes the life 
of her most renowned commanders, and wearies the hearts 
of many of her emperors through the space of 400 years in 
her stubborn resolve to subdue and possess it ! 




FIRST INVASION BY CiESAR. 85 



CHAPTER I. 

The Roman Invasion. 

The struggle at Rome to establish the first Triumvirate 
of Csesar, Pompey, and Crassus, was no sooner over than 
the ambitious Caesar set out for the conquest of Britain. In 
B.C. 55, he finds Rome torn by faction, and hastening 
towards decay ; and he wisely seeks relief in an active 
campaign, and food for ambition in conquest. Rome, if 
rendering herself inglorious by dishonouring her own laws, 
and exhibiting in caricature her own institutions, must be 
made renowned abroad by deeds of arms ; and if bent on 
suicide, she must find a saviour as well as master in the 
mightiest of her sons. 

In all his wars with the Gauls the Britons had sent aid 
to his opponents. 1 He resolves to punish their audacity, 
and at the same time win laurels by their subjugation. 
Late in the season, in B.C. 55, he prepares to embark for 
Britain, apparently believing that for the conquest of such 
a people, the small portion remaining of that year would 
suffice. From the coast of Gaul, somewhere between Calais 
and Boulogne, across the narrowest part of the channel, he 
views the cliffs — the towering white chalk-cliffs — of the 
coveted island, glistening in the sun, and prepares for 

1 De Dell. Gall. lib. iv. 20. 



86 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

embarking his legions. The little port of Itium 1 is the place 
where the great Roman, chafing at the insolence of the 
Britons, collects his fleet of eighty ships — collects his 
heavy-armed legions. The eighty ships are filled with two 
legions, numbering about 12,000 infantry. The cavalry 
embark from another point, and in other boats. The great 
flock of triremes, with regular stroke of oars, makes across 
the channel, watched by the Gauls from behind, watched 
also by the wary Britons. After a little beating about for 
a convenient creek, they halt, and prepare to land. The 
Britons are prepared to meet them. A hard struggle 
ensues, without decisive victory. The Roman soldiers are 
shy of fighting in the water, while the eager Britons 
advance to attack them breast high in the sea. At last 
the natives fall back, and the Romans land, and wait 
for their cavalry. A truce is formed ; the Britons, who 
w T ell knew of Caesar's doings in Gaul, and the great power 
he had behind him, conditionally submit. Again a little 
fighting with a foraging party, and again a truce and 
submission ; and then Caesar, having accomplished nothing 
proportionate to the extent of his preparations, at once 
decides on quitting the island. News of this success 
reaches Rome, and the Senate order rejoicings for twenty 
days — a proof either that Rome must be in sad want of 
something to rejoice at, or that the triumph as yet obtained 
in Britain had been most grossly exaggerated. 

Caesar clearly felt that he had begun a work of greater 
difficulty than he had anticipated. Having received hos- 
tages from the Britons, he returns to Gaul to quell a rising 

1 " Itium, which the divine Caesar (Kaia-ap 6 debs) used as his naval 
station, when about to pass over to Britain." Strabo, Gcogr. B. iv. 
278. The late Emperor Napoleon maintains that the port of Itium 
was Boulogne and not Witsand, as generally supposed. He is most 
likely right. Life of Julius Ccvsar, vol. ii. 201. 



CESAR'S SECOND ATTACK. 87 

insurrection among the Morini. lie remains in Gaul over 
winter, and meditates a grand scheme of conquest in Britain 
in the spring. He makes diligent preparations — builds 
transport ships, collects troops, amasses material of war 
The spring approaches, and nothing is left unaccomplished 
to secure complete success for this second expedition. 

Having returned from a journey to Italy, he finds himselt 
in the spring of B.C. 56 in possession of nearly 700 ships, 
all built on purpose for the invasion of Britain. Did great 
Rome, and "divus Caesar," make these mighty preparations 
in order to invade a handful of feeble, painted barbarians r 
At the same port of Itium (probably Boulogne) he puts on 
board his 700 transports an army of 30,000 infantry, besides 
a complement of cavalry, and, after a delay of some weeks 
through adverse winds, weighs anchor and reaches Sandwich 
haven in Kent, 1 about the spot of the first landing. Greater 
preparations on the part of Caesar have been met by greater 
on the part of the Britons. They have learned wisdom, 
and now encounter these teeming legions, not with the 
piece-meal forces of individual tribes, or a small federation 
of tribes in the one district of Kent, but with an " allied 
army," combining the military strength of several powerful 
states, or so-called "kingdoms." These, probably, com- 
prehended our modern Kent, Middlesex, Essex, part of 
Suffolk, Berks, &c. Cassivelaunus (Caswallon) is the brave 
chieftain to whom they entrust the command. Dreadful 
encounters follow. " The enemy's horse," says Caesar, 
" supported by their chariots, vigorously charged our 
cavalry." Though gaining advantages, the Romans found 
it costly work. " It evidently appeared," he adds, " that 
our heavy-armed legions were by no means a fit match for 

1 Different opinions have prevailed respecting the point of debarkation, 
some identifying it with Sandwich, some with Walmer. The Emperor 
Napoleon decides in favour of Deal. Life of Julius Ctcsar, vol. ii. 208. 



88 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

such an enemy, nor could even the cavalry engage without 
great danger/ 5 because of the quick evolutions and peculiar 
tactics of the Britons. The bloody work, however, goes 
on ; and at last the capital of Cassivelaunus, which Caesar 
declares was admirably fortified (egregie munitum), is 
stormed and taken ; the tribes in active hostility are sub- 
dued, promise tribute, deliver hostages, but retain their 
usages, laws, and government, their kings henceforth ruling 
by nominal authority from Caesar ; and so, before the end 
of the summer of that same year the conqueror returns to 
Gaul, leaving no troops in Britain. Caesar is destined never 
more to set foot on British soil ; and the Britons, once he 
has departed, are virtually as free and independent as 
before. Such, and only such, was the conquest of Britain 
by Caesar, as shall be further shown in a future page. 

The great commander has now other work to attend to. 
His stormy rivalship with Pompey taxes all his energies. 
He succeeds ; wins his way to the Dictatorship, obtains the 
great victory of Pharsalia, struggles up the steps of power 
till he is deemed and proclaimed " divine," and, ten years 
after defeating the heroic Caswallon, falls in the Senate 
House by the daggers of Brutus and Cassius ! This was 
the end of him who had boastingly exclaimed, " I, by whom 
you have subdued the Gauls and conquered the Britons" 
&C. 1 — an exclamation which, though claiming more than 
was due, implies volumes of eulogy on the power and valour 
of our ancestors ! 

For a hundred years after the death of Caesar, Rome had 
no leisure to molest the Britons. Augustus and Tiberius 
gave them rest. The islanders profited from the peace, 
and grew in wealth and culture. The Brigantes in the 
North (Yorkshire, &c), and the Silures of South Wales and 
Herefordshire, under Caractacus, became powerful states. 
1 Diou. Cass. xli. 34. 



CLAUDIUS'S CAMPAIGN. 89 

The successor of Caswallon, Cunobeline, (Cynfclin), ruled 
in South Britain over a prosperous people. In his time, 
the Britons were not low in civilization. We have already- 
shown that they executed a regular coinage, and that long 
before Caesar's time they had both brass and gold coin in 
circulation. 1 

Claudius was the first Roman Emperor whose ambition 
reached so far as Britain. A year after he made Herod 
Agrippa King of Judsea and Samaria, A.D. 43, he sent his 
General, Aulus Plautius, with a great force to Britain. The 
Trinobantes of Essex and Suffolk, were now, as before, the 
chief to bear the brunt of the attack. Vespasian, after- 
wards Emperor, and his son Titus, were amongst the 
officers in command. Claudius himself came over. The 
submission of the Britons was speedily won. Claudius 
obtained the honour of a triumph, and received the surname 
Britannicus 1 — another indirect proof of the importance 
attached at Rome to the subjugation of the Britons. 

As yet, the sea coast of the south, and the country a 
little way into the interior alone had been brought under 
tribute. Caraciacus, king of the Silures, 3 and the Britons 
of the mid-country, and of north, east, and west, had not 
been affected. 

Ostorius came next. He lost no time, but immediately 
pushed on towards Shropshire and Lancashire, and was 
brought to a stand by Caractacus. This puissant prince, 
after the noblest efforts on record for the defence and 

1 De Bell. Gall. v. 12. See pp. 65, G6. 

2 Dion. Cass. Ix. 23. 

"Caractacus is said by Dion Cassius, who wrote two centuries after 
his time, to be the son of Cunobeline, already mentioned ; but the 
testimony of the Triads, which have the advantage of native tradition, 
if not of written record, as a basis, is clear that he was the son of Brill 
the blessed, son of Llvr. 



90 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

honour of his country, was destined to defeat at the hands 
of Ostorius, and to betrayal at the hands of Queen 
Cartismandua, 1 (a " Roman Matron/' as Richard of Ciren- 
cester calls her — who had married Venutius ruler of the 
Brigantes) with whom he had sought shelter. But his 
defeat was not an easy or sudden thing. For nine whole 
years had this heroic man kept the field against the power 
of Rome, fighting meantime many battles, and inflicting 
terrible losses on the imperial army. When led a captive 
to Rome, his arrival created one of the most exciting and 
impressive spectacles history has depicted. " Curiosity 
was eager," says Tacitus, " to behold the heroic 
chieftain who for such a length of time made head 
against a great and powerful empire. Even at Rome, 
the name of Caractacus was in high celebrity." 2 What 
Briton can read the speech put into the foiled warrior's 
mouth by Tacitus without emotion ? " If to the nobility of 
my birth, and the splendour of exalted station, I had united 
the virtues of moderation [careful direction] Rome had 
beheld me, not in captivity, but a royal visitor and a friend. 
The alliance of a prince descended from an illustrious line 
of ancestors, a prince whose sway extended over many 
regions, would not have been unworthy of your choice. A 
reverse of fortune is now the lot of Caractacus. The event 
to you is glorious, — to me humiliating. . . . The am- 
bition of Rome aspires to universal conquest. I stood at 
bay for years : had I done otherwise, where on your part 
had been the glory of conquest, and where on mine the 
honour of a brave resistance ? I am now in your power ; 
if you are bent on vengeance, execute your purpose : the 
bloody scene will soon be over, and the name of Caractacus 
will sink into oblivion. Preserve my life, and I shall be to 
late posterity a monument of Roman clemency." Carac- 
1 Aregwedd Foeddawg? ~ Annates, xii. 36. 



CARACTACUS — SUETONIUS— AGRICOLA. g I 

tacus won the favour of Claudius and was set at liberty; 
but whether he ever left Rome, or what became of him or 
his family, history, strange to say, does not relate. 

" . . . . Ximius vobis [Cimbrica] propago 
Visa potens, superi, propria hsec si dona fuissent ! " 

Britain, as far as Yorkshire and Wales, was under Os- 
torius made tributary to Rome. After Ostorius, a long 
line of generals, including several of the emperors in person, 
commanded the invading forces. A. Didius Gallus, Sueto- 
nius, who conquered Mona (Anglesea), slaughtered the 
Druids, 1 and quelled the rising under Boadicea, 2 when 
80,000 men are said to have fallen — Cerealis, Frontinus r 
and Agricola, a wise and brave governor, invader of the 
Caledonians, and the fortunate father-in-law of Tacitus,, 
whose pen has made his name illustrious for all coming 
ages. 3 In this last commander's time the rampart from 
the Forth to the Clyde was erected as a barrier to check 
the unsubduable Caledonians, and the subjugation of 
Britain may be said to have been in a sense completed. 
In A.D. 121, Hadrian, the " travelling emperor," paid a visit 
to Britain, and " Hadrian's Wall," more southerly than 
that of Agricola, was built from the Tyne to the Solway* 
Then came Marcellus, Albinus, and the Emperor Severus, 
who in A.D. 209 constructed the famous wall of solid 
masonry from Tynemouth in the East to Bowness in the 
West, and two years afterwards died at York. Next came 
Constantius, said to have married the British princess 
Helena, 4 who died also at York, and Constantino the Great 
(Cystenyn Fawr) his son, who for thirty years promoted 

1 Tacitus, Annal. xii. 30. - Ibid. 31 et scq. 

:1 In his Vita Agricolcc. 
4 Geoffrey of Monm. Hist, v.; Richard of Circnc. ii. I, 24. This 
story must be allowed to be " doubtful." 



92 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

peace and prosperity among the Britons, and died a.d. 137. 
Then follow Constans and Theodosius ; and lastly, Maxi- 
mus (who in Welsh history is called Macsen Wledig), fol- 
lowing whose fortunes many thousand British youths are 
said by Nennius to have left for Gaul, and eventually set- 
tled in Armorica. 1 In a subsequent section on the extent 
and power of the British population under the Romans, 
the operations of some of these great commanders will be 
treated of at some length. 

Overwhelming troubles were now gathering in store for 
the Roman Empire. The storm in which she foundered 
and sunk soon broke in fury upon her. In A.D. 395 the 
empire is parted between the sons Theodosius the Great. 
The Huns devastate the eastern provinces. The Goths, 
under Alaric, invade Italy, and in a.d. 410 sack and burn 
the Eternal City. Two years later the Roman legions are 
recalled from Britain, and the Britons are left their own 
masters and their own protectors. 

The withdrawal of the Roman army from this island 
took place just 465 years after the first landing of Julius 
Csssar. This, then, was the extreme period of the Roman 
occupation of Britain. But from Ccssar to Agricola was 135 
years, and this length of time elapsed before the Roman 
arms became victorious over the southern, central, and 
western parts of the island, and succeeded in hemming in 
the Caledonians to the mountains of the north. From 
Agricola to Maximus was 330 years, and this long period 
it took, first to establish a kind of general government of 
the island, and then to convince the Romans that the occu- 
pation was more costly than pleasant or profitable. Both 

1 Nennius, Hist. 23. This whole story is very doubtful. Lobineau, 
in his Hisloire de Bretagne, totally rejects it, as inconsistent with the 
fact that Maximus's expedition landed on the Rhine, and not in 
Armorica. 



ROMAN MAGNIFICENCE IN BRITAIN. 93 

these facts are of material importance in their bearing on our 
argument, and to them, in the proper place, we must recur. 
During this long period of Roman conflict and ascend- 
ancy, a stupendous change had been effected in Britain. 
The Roman civilization had been completely introduced ; 
the condition of the Britons — barring the loss of independ- 
ence and freedom for which nothing could compensate — 
had doubtless been greatly improved. Military roads had 
been constructed from end to end of the country, and vast 
works of public utility and ornament had been completed. 
The bridges, gardens, baths, and villas of Rome had been 
reproduced in Britain, and all the pomp and luxury of the 
Imperial Court made familiar to our forefathers. The com- 
plete and rigid municipal government of the Roman cities, 
and the Roman laws generally, tempered by the chasten- 
ing spirit of Christianity, had prevailed for nearly 300 years. 1 
In fact, Britain had lavished upon her all the care and 
attention which the chiefest of Roman Provincial enjoyed. 
In the words of one of our ablest historians : " The country 
was replete with the monuments of Roman magnificence. 
Malmesbury appeals to those stately ruins (which still 
remained in his time — twelfth century) as testimonies of the 
favour which Britain had enjoyed : the towers, the temples, 
the theatres, and the baths .... excited the wonder and 
admiration of the chronicler and the traveller." 2 Malmes- 
bury says, " That Britain was held in high estimation by 
that people (the Romans) may be collected from their 
history, and be seen also in the ruins of their ancient build- 

1 For the laws which were in force in Britain, see Heineccii Hist. 
jiir. Rum. i. 379. The Theodosian Code did not embrace the whole 
Roman law. As to the Justinian Code, or Corpus juris, this, of course, 
was not yet compiled. 

- Palgrave, Exgl. Coiniii. vol. i. 323. See also Girald. Cambr. /tin. 
Cambr. lib. i. 5. 



•94 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

ings. Even their emperors, sovereigns of almost all the 
world, eagerly embraced opportunities of sailing hither, 
and of spending their days here." x Tacitus tells 2 us that 
Agricola " encouraged the natives to build temples, courts 

of justice, and commodious dwelling-houses The 

Roman apparel was seen without prejudice, and the toga 

became a fashionable part of dress Baths, porticoes, 

and elegant banquets grew into vogue," &c. 

This impressive display of power and refinement would 
of itself be a valuable teacher to the youth of Britain. 
Prompted by natural disposition, and encouraged by their 
governors, they would soon lay aside the simple attire of 
their ancestors and don the Roman toga, intermix with 
the lessons of the Druids the study of Cicero, Livy, 
and Horace, and receive in silent admiration the impress 
of grace and beauty produced by the sculptured marble 
•ornamenting every temple pediment, every porch, and 
every garden. 

But all was not magnificence, solidity, and peace. To 
counterbalance these advantages, a heavy sorrow weighed 
on the heart of the British race. The image of their lost 
independence ever stood before their eyes. Oppression sat 
as ruler. The Roman procurator, as a rule, in those 
degenerate times, was an extortioner ; and this operated 
as chief cause in the insurrection under Boadicea, and in 
many other breaches of the public peace. The British 
youth were, according to Roman custom in a conquered 
country, drafted into the imperial legions and sent off on 
foreign service. An army of some 50,000 men was main- 
tained by a grinding taxation in order to keep in sub- 
jection the very people taxed. 3 The native population, 
deprived of all power, restrained from the exercise of self- 

1 Gcsta Regum Anglor. i. 1. - Vit. Agric. 21. 

3 See Horsley's Brit. Romana, B. i. and li. 



CHRISTIANITY IX BRITAIN. 95 

government, although improved by contact with refinement 
and knowledge, sank into a condition of inaction and 
dependence. Though externally cultured, and surrounded by 
all the tokens of taste and magnificence, they were internally 
debased ; and in the very presence of power and learning 
were deprived of the native force and genius which in former 
times they had displayed. However ridiculous the ex- 
aggerations ascribed to Gildas, and credited with eagerness 
by historians, — but as will hereafter be shown, credited 
without sufficient reflection — concerning their helplessness 
in the face of their old northern assailants, their kindred 
the"Picts and Scots," it cannot be denied that on the 
departure of their Roman protectors, they exhibited much 
of the weakness and disorder to be expected from a race 
which had been under tutelage, and trained to obey rather 
than command. And what a demonstration is here supplied 
of the compatibility under despotic governments of the 
highest culture and splendour in the governing with ad- 
vancing sickliness and decrepitude in the governed ! 

We must not pass from this part of our subject without 
noticing the grandest event of all in this eventful period 
in British history — the introduction of Christianity. During 
these 465 years of Roman occupation what a change had 
this great moral power effected in the British heart and 
life ! The people had lost their liberty, but had gained at 
the same time those great moral truths which gave liberty 
to the spirit while the person was a bondsman — truths 
wdiich were destined as ages advanced to make Britain the 
ruling power on earth — the home of liberty and the refug'e 
of the oppressed of all lands. 

This was a stirring time, not in Britain alone. The 
wonderful spirit of migration and conquest which had 
possessed the northern barbarians, led to a remodelling of 
most of the communities of Europe. The Christian Church 



9 6 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

had become a great power. Her influence and life had 
permeated the Roman Empire, and many of the emperors 
had professed the faith of Christ. This was the time when 
Augustine and Jerome, Eusebius and Socrates (the his- 
torian), Chrysostom, Cyril, and Theodoret, flourished. 
The sun of Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregorys, had 
scarcely set. The spirit of Denial had also confronted the 
Faith. The mental struggles and bold theories of Arius, 
of the Welshman Morgan (Pelagius), and of Celestius, 
belong to this age. It may be doubted whether the 
stir of thought, the battle of truth and error, in our day of 
boasted mental activity, are greater and more earnest. 



97 



CHAPTER II. 
The Anglo-Saxon Invasion. 

No sooner has one affliction taken its departure, than 
another, and a heavier one, sets in. The occasion is known 
to all. The Picts and Scots of Caledonia, old enemies of 
both Romans and Britons, though of the same Celtic stock 
with the latter, rush over the wall of Severus, and devastate 
the land. They have learned that Rome has withdrawn 
her army, that the Britons are torn asunder by faction on 
questions of rank and precedence in the establishment of a 
new Government, and, taking advantage of the opportunity, 
threaten suddenly to overwhelm the country. The Britons, 
though numerous, and determined enough to maintain their 
ground, having an imperfect organization, and having 
recently been deprived of their military leaders, find them- 
selves unequal to the emergency. 

They appeal to Rome for assistance, and Rome — to her 
credit — came to the rescue. Although herself in greatest 
straits, and having hardly a man to spare, once and again 
she despatched a force to Britain, and assisted to clear the 
country of the foe. This is an account received, not on the 
authority of Gildas, which to all intents is untrustworthy, 
but on that of Nennius and Bede as well. 1 But it is to be 
feared that in some of their statements the latter had copied 
Gildas. 

1 Nennius, 30. Bede, Hist. Ecclcs. 1. 12. 

II 



98 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

But Rome at last grew tired of rendering assistance, and, 
in fact, grew unequal to it. Gallio Ravennas, it is said, 
was the last Roman general who trod on British ground. 
He chastised the Picts and Scots, repaired the wall of 
Severus, gave directions for its future defence, and, after 
exhorting the Britons to be brave and hopeful, took his 
departure for good in a.d. 427, just fifteen years after the 
withdrawal of the Roman army and occupation. 

Would that some one had written a book — that some 
quiet Nennius, or Robert of Gloucester, had chronicled the 
events of that dreadful interval — of all intervals in the life 
of the British people in historic times the most fascinating 
in its mystery ! An impenetrable veil hangs over it ; and 
yet its great eventfulness cannot be doubted. Nennius tells 
us that after the termination of the Roman power the 
Britons were in a state of alarm forty years. 1 Some sort 
of government had been set up when the Romans left in 
A.D. 412. Probably several small kingdoms had been 
formed, and a confederacy attempted. But bitter disputes 
intervened on the question especially of the Pendragon- 
ship. A time of anguish and perplexity, of great fears 
and great hopes, was this first age of recovering but totter- 
ing independence. What wonder if the longing spirit of 
a people wildly imaginative and fervently patriotic, after 
centuries of cruel subjection, should now, at the first dawn of 
a new era of liberty, conceive wild dreams of Messiah 
deliverers in heroes of prseternatural power and genius, and 
should see omens and miraculous prodigies ? King Arthur, 
and his knights of the Round Table, whether fabulous 
or veritably historical — a question we need not strive to 
settle here — were characters which had their origin in this 
age. The terrible struggles which took place in the sixty 
years following the recal of the Roman legions between 
1 Hist, of the Britons, 31. 



DARK TIMES IN BRITAIN— ARTHUR. 99 

Britons and Britons, between Britons and the men of 
Caledonia, and between Britons and Saxons, have never 
been recorded, and shall never more be heard of. But 
that was a gloomy, eventful, sanguinary time, which doubt- 
less called for, and we would fain believe witnessed, the 
rise of a man of the genius and prowess ascribed to Arthur, 
the renowned son of the Pendragon of Britain. The life 
of Arthur, it is true, has been charged with an abundance 
of mythological fiction ; so also has the life of Charlemagne 
and of Rollo ; but neither Arthur, Charlemagne, nor Rollo 
can be changed into a myth on this account. 1 

Vortigern (Gwrtheyrn)had, it seems, become king of South- 
west Britain during this period of trouble. To him, and to 
the Britons for ages, as well as to the Romans, the so- 
called "Saxons" — a branch, not unmixed, of the great 
Teutonic family which had spread itself along the shores 
of the Baltic, and between Holstein and the Rhine, 2 had 
not been unknown. They had frequently paid threatening 
visits to the British shores, and, as explained elsewhere, 

1 For the fabulous history of Arthur, the fertile seed of the Romance 
literature of all Europe in the middle ages, see Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
B. ix. For a defence of Arthur's really historic character, see Turner's 
Anglo-Saxons, vol. 1, p. 268 et seq. Every critic will allow that Geoffrey 
is highly legendary, but nothing but the dilettanteism of criticism 
would therefore consider as legendary the whole story of King Arthur. 
True, neither Bede, Florence of Worcester, nor the Saxon Chronicle 
mentions him. But the Annales Cambria; (sub ami. 516, 537), the Liber 
Landavensis, Nennius (Hist. Brit. 62), Henry of Huntingdon (sub ami. 
527), and the British Bruts and Triads, are express and circumstantial 
witnesses in his favour. That the supposititious Gildas makes no men- 
tion of the British hero is quite in keeping with the overflowing spite 
and prejudice which the DeExcidio Britannice everywhere shows towards 
the Britons; and as to Bede, his notices of this period in Wales are 
extremely meagre. Although his history is specifically ecclesiastical, 
he never names David of Menevia (St. David) and Dubricius, contempo- 
raries of Arthur, nor the Sees of Llandaff and Caerleon. 

2 Bede, Eccles. Hist. i. 15; Ptolemy, Geogv. ii. 2; Sax. Chron. aim. 449, 

II 2 



IOO THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

had probably formed extensive settlements. They had 
obtained unenviable notoriety for their roving and plunder- 
ing habits, and their terror had fallen on all the shores of 
the German sea. 

It would seem that about the year A.D. 449, Vortigern, 
who was in some sort an usurper and rival for the chief 
rulership with other native princes, thought he might 
strengthen his claim to the chief Sovereignty, or Pen- 
dragonship, and put a stop to the ravages of the Cale- 
donians, by forming an alliance with some of these free- 
booters. Hengist and Horsa (whom we take as historical 
and not mythic personages) and their followers, were 
therefore invited to his assistance. This is the Saxon 
account. Nennius's representation is that the Saxons first 
came in as it were by accident. " In the meantime three 
vessels, exiled from Germany, arrived in Britain, com- 
manded by Hengist and Horsa, sons of Wihtgils. Vortigern 
received them as friends," &C. 1 Their coming over — 
whether by accident, invitation, or plundering design — 
was the entrance of the wedge which, by and by, wrenched 
the greater part of the island from the dominion of the 
Britons. 

Britain presented an appearance of fertility and beauty 
which the men of the North Sea did not find in their native 
regions. Once they had found a firm footing, therefore, 
pretexts were easy for the prolongation of their stay. They 
had come over, let us suppose, as the Britons' protectors ; 
but Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ? The end was open 
hostility, a declared intention on the part of the strangers 
to enjoy a home in Britain. The scorn of the old Cymry at 
this proposal may be imagined. They, the original, only 
rightful possessors, now to be quietly deposed ! Not so ! But 
the wary north-men, to strengthen their case, invited horde 
1 Hist. Brit. 31. 



SAXONS FLOCK INTO BRITAIN. ioi 

after horde of their lean and needy countrymen to join 
them. Their enterprise became every day more hopeful, and 
therefore, after their code of morals, juster. More and 
more adventurers arrived. They came "like swarms of 
bees," says an old chronicler. Repulsed at one point, they 
only seemed to gain renewal of strength at another ; the 
more they were vanquished, the more they replenished 
themselves with new supplies from Germany. 1 News flew 
from the Rhine to the Elbe and thence far into Denmark, 
that Britain, the fairest of islands, was becoming a prey to 
the first comers, and the passion for settlement on her 
shores became so strong that, according to Bede, the 
regions about the Baltic and the south of Holstein — regions, 
however, which cannot be supposed to have ever sustained 
a large population — were left well-nigh depopulated. 
After inviting them as friends, for 150 years it became the 
employment of the Britons to contest the possession of 
their country with them as invaders, and after fighting, to 
grant them room. Not inapt to the circumstances are the 
lines of Horace : — 

" Cervus equum pugna melior communibus herbis 
Pellebat, donee minor in certamine longo 
Imploravit opes hominis, frenumque recepit : 
Sed, postquam victor violens discessit ab hoste 
Non equitem dorso, non frenum depulit ore." - 

It will be sufficient for our purpose to enumerate in the 
briefest form the successive arrivals of the Angle and 
Saxon Bands, and their settlements in different provinces 
of Britain. The Anglo-Saxon conquest, like the Roman 
was effected by slow degrees and at terrible cost to both 
parties. The slowness of the conquest is a feature which 
has a most material bearing upon our argument, and to 
this the especial attention of the reader is invited. There 

1 Ncnnius, Ilist. Brit. G5. ~ Epist. i. 10. vv. 34—38. 



102 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

must have been specific reasons for that slowness ; and 
those reasons all tell, a priori, in favour of the conclusion, 
at which, step by step, we arrive. 

The Anglo-Saxon Arrivals. 

i. A.D. 449, and just 22 years after the departure of the 
Romans, Hengist andHorsa,by invitation of Vortigern, 
arrive, and after 20 years of conflict, succeed in found- 
ing the small Saxon kingdom of Kent in A.D. 473. x 
These were Jutes, and the Saxon Chronicle says their 
conflicts were with the Welsh, [with Walas), meaning, 
probably, "the strange people." 

2. A.D. 477. The Frisians, or Old Saxons, make an incur- 

sion under Ella their chief, " in three ships," [mid 
thry scipum), 2 and in 20 years, or thereabouts, establish 
the kingdom of the South Saxons, or Sussex ; that is 
about the year 496. They, also, fight with the Walas. 

3. A.D. 495. Cerdic, with his son Cynric, comes to 

Britain " in five ships," [mid fif scipum), " and the 
same day," says the chronicler, "fought with the 
Welsh," [gefuhtun with Walas) ; 3 and in A.D. 519, find 
themselves in possession of the kingdom of the West 
Saxons or Wessex. This was after 24 years of 'fighting. 
These were Saxons. 

4. A.D. 530. Ercenwine, or Aescwin, with his Saxon fol- 

lowers, arrives, and after about 1 2 years' contest, succeeds 
in forming the kingdom of the East Saxons or Essex, 
comprehending modern Essex, Middlesex, and part of 
Herts, &c. "It is doubtful," says Sir F. Palgrave, 
" whether this kingdom ever enjoyed independence." 
It became subject to Mercia in the seventh century, 
and was merged in Wessex in 823. 

1 Bede, Eccles. Hist. i. 15 ; Sax. Chron. ann. 449 — 473. 
2 Sax Chron. ann. 477. 3 Ibid. ann. 495. 



ANGLO-SAXON CONQUESTS. 103 

5. In a.d. 540, the Angles, under Uffa their chief, estab- 

lished themselves in " East Anglia," which included 
Norfolk and Suffolk. 

6. In A.D. 547, Ida, with a tribe of Angles, established a 

footing in the North of England between the Tweed 
and the Forth, and formed the kingdom of North- 
Humber-land, 1 — the most important of all the original 
Anglo-Saxon settlements. 

7. About A.D. 585, was established the kingdom of Mercia, 

it is said by Crida, whose followers were Angles. 

This was the last of those successive incursions which 
may with some latitude of expression be termed " Saxon 
invasions," and this last took place just 136 years after the 
first intrusion under Hengist and Horsa. What an amount 
of conflict and carnage is here implied ! And what evi- 
dence is furnished of the power and persistency of the 
Ancient Britons. To this aspect of the question we shall 
very especially and repeatedly have to recur. 

It will be useful here to mark the topography of the 
various settlements. " Winning their way by slow and 
painful efforts," observes Gibbon, " they advanced from the 
North, from the East, and from the South, till their vic- 
torious banners were united in the centre of the island." 
This conclusion of their labours, however, thus rather 
rhetorically, and in few words set forth, was not accom- 
plished without some 300 years of contest : for the Saxon 
power was triumphant in England only with Egbert of 
Wessex, whose reign ended in A.D. 836. The efforts were 
truly " slow," and equally " painful ! " 

The first invasion made the Jutes in twenty years masters 
of the whole of Kent. The second in another twenty 
covered Sussex and Surrey — (South Saxons, and South- 

1 Sax. Chron. ann. 547 ; Ethehverd's Chron. ibid. ; 
Nennius, Hist. 61. 



104 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

rica, or kingdom). The third, under Cerdic, included 
Hants, "Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Oxford- 
shire, Berks, and Bucks. This was a work of twenty-four 
years. The fourth embraced Essex, Middlesex, and part 
. of Herts ; and was the work of about twelve years. The 
fifth included Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and part 
of Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. The sixth, and 
most important of all, made the Angles masters, we do not 
know in how long or short a time, of part of the South of 
Scotland, Northumberland, Durham, Westmoreland, Cum- 
berland, Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, &c. The seventh 
set up Mercia, the particulars of whose establishment are 
rather obscure : but that it embraced Chester, Derby, Not- 
tingham, Lincoln (or part of it), Shropshire, Staffordshire, 
Leicestershire, Rutland, Northampton, Huntingdon, Here- 
ford, Worcester, Warwick, is known. 

The question will perhaps be asked : If so, where were 
now the Britons ? Another question were exactly appro- 
priate : Where were not the Britons r To suppose that 
from all England, thus at last covered with nominal Saxon 
governments, the Britons had been expelled, is to involve 
the task of answering the question, Whither ? Wales had 
its own people, as Offa of Mercia painfully knew, and could 
at best but offer asylum to a limited number of fugitives, 
persistent patriots, who refused on any terms submission to 
Anglo-Saxon rule. The body of the people must have 
remained where they were, as far as the unsettled times 
would allow, compounding with necessity, taking the con- 
querors as their masters, but still in many instances enjoy- 
ing their own national customs, laws, and language, until 
by degrees, through intermarriage, the experience and 
exhibition of kindly offices, and the healing influence 
of time, they and their subduers became one people. But 
the illustration and proof of this will be the business 



THE NAME "ENGLAND. 105 

of the next part of our work, We now only indicate 
materials. 

We have thus had just a glance at the people, who, by- 
bold adventure and steady pertinacity, obtained the mastery 
in government over the aboriginal British race, and gave 
England her name and institutions. The name England 
is derived from the Angli of Northumberland, and they 
succeeded in thus perpetuating their name in the country, 
not because the state they had founded was the most im- 
portant of the Heptarchy, but probably in part because in 
their northern home they were the parent stock, and partly, 
and even chiefly, for a very different reason. It was the 
Church, in point of fact, that attached the name of the 
Angli to this land. It is at once a baptismal designation, 
and a memento of affliction and misfortune. All know the 
story about the British youth exposed for sale in the Roman 
Forum, and Pope Gregory's exclamation, " non Angli sed 
Angeli," and the consequent mission of Augustine to the 
Anglo-Saxons (a.d. 597.) 1 Ethelbert, ( King of Kent, whose 
Teuton subjects were not Angles, but Jutes, was by Gregory 
styled " Rex Anglorum." It would appear that the inha- 
bitants of Britain were henceforth in all ecclesiastical docu- 
ments styled A ngli, and in process of time the country was 
by a statute of Egbert called Engla-lond — whence our 
modern England. 

While Britain was thus the theatre of conflict between 
the Wealas and their Angle and Saxon troublers, what 
great events have we seen transpiring elsewhere ? The 
whole of Europe and a great part of Asia has been in a 

1 It seems almost unaccountable that the Britons had made no efforts 
up to this time to convert the Anglo-Saxons. The force of Christian 
charity seems to have been overcome by national antipathy. Gildas is 
not far from faithfully reflecting the British feeling when he styles the 
Saxons, " ncfandi nominis Saxoni, Deo homnibusque invisi." 



106 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

state of ferment. The Goths have taken and consumed 
Rome. The Western Empire has been extinguished. The 
renown of Clovis, Theodoric, Alaric, Belisarius, has been 
established. Mohammed has founded a new religion and 
a new epoch ; and Abu-beker, Omar, and Ali have had 
their names emblazoned as champions of the faith. 
Charlemagne has created a magnificent empire. Boethius 
has thought. Justinian has compiled the civil code. 
Aneurin, Taliesin, Merlin, and Llywarch the Aged, in the 
language of the Cymry, have courted the muse ; and 
Columba and Winifred (Boniface) have gone forth in the 
spirit of true apostles to publish the Gospel in heathen 
lands. Truly, an eventful time. 




CHAPTER III. 

The Danish Invasion. 

The Britons are no sooner overpowered and swallowed 
up by the Anglo-Saxons, than the Anglo-Saxons are 
invaded by predatory bands from the same country, and 
almost the very regions whence they themselves had come. 
Denmark [Dane-mark : the line or boundary of the Dane) 
once more pours forth its fierce warriors and intrepid sea- 
captains on the shores of Britain, and the Saxons of the 
South and Angles of the North, when just beginning to 
settle their mutual differences, and sit down quietly in the 
seat of empire, are called out to measure swords with new 
claimants, who insolently propose to share the plunder, or, 
as an alternative, take the whole of it. 

As early as A.D. 787, nearly fifty years before Saxon 
power had been consolidated in Egbert of Wessex, the 
Danes begin to make their appearance in British waters. 
In Egbert's time they greatly increase in boldness, in 
strength, in mischief; and in spite of this king's success 
in fortifying the Anglo-Saxon cause by the concentration 
of power in Wessex, the Danes, inch by inch, win their 
ground, until at last, in about 1 50 years after Egbert had 
reached his zenith, they succeed in placing a warrior of 
their own race — Canute — on the throne of all England ! 

The overthrow of Saxon power by the Danes, therefore, 
was, by a great deal, more speedy than the overthrow of 



I08 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Ancient British power by the Saxons ! This may appear 
very marvellous at first sight ; hut there is really no mystery 
in the matter. We have been accustomed to under-rate 
the number, power, and civilization of the Britons, and 
hence find ourselves incapable on any rational grounds of 
accounting for the length of the contest they maintained. 
We cling fondly to a theory we have created independently 
of facts, and are then brought to a pause by facts which 
totally belie it. We have been willing to forget that the 
Britons succeeded in maintaining their long and weary 
contest despite the circumstance that at the outset they had 
been caught under the disadvantage of mutual jealousies 
and divisions — as they had indeed been caught before by 
the Romans. If we take these two circumstances into 
account, viz., the Britons' weakness, through division 
among themselves, when first attacked by the Saxons, and 
the fact that notwithstanding this, they contrived to keep 
the foe at bay for 150 years, we must, on all grounds of 
truth and fairness, give them credit for a good share of 
political vitality, as well as martial power. No historian 
denies that the Anglo-Saxons, when the Danes disputed 
with them the empire of England, were powerful, numerous, 
and, thanks to the tutoring they had received from the 
subdued Britons, somewhat civilized. But, we repeat it, 
Anglo-Saxon power was broken by the Dane in less time 
than British power was broken by the Anglo-Saxon. It 
has been said that the Dane had one great advantage on 
his side as compared with the Saxon, namely, that while 
the latter had to fight with a nation which came forth as 
one man to oppose him, the former found frequent help 
from the oppressed and smarting Britons, who preferred a 
change of masters to a continuance of the hardships they 
were enduring. But the former part of this representation 
is as contrary to fact as the latter part is in harmony with 



INEFFECTUAL RESISTANCE. IOO 

the same. The Anglo-Saxons had not to encounter a 
united British people ; whole tribes, the Lloegrians and 
Brython, went bodily over to them, and we contend that, 
whenever they conquered a district, they incorporated the 
natives, and made them fight their battles. 

Glance now at the progress of the " Danish-men." 
Brithric married in A.D. 787, Eadburga, daughter of Offa 
of Mercia, and " in his days first came three ships of 
Northmen out of Haerethaland (Denmark). These were 
the first ships of Danish men which sought the land of the 
English nation." 1 "First" indeed perhaps to seek the 
land, but by no means the first to seek plunder. Nor 
are they the last. More come in their wake, and more 
again. Like the Saxons before them, they soon "swarm 
like bees." The wild rovers of the Baltic, the fierce 
banditti of the Norwegian and Danish mountains, embark 
in their " cheols " and make for the coveted isle, safe 
of winning something, safe of losing nothing. They 
increase in number. In A.D. 840, they came in thirty- 
five ships? In A.D. 851 came three hundred and fifty 
ships to the mouth of the Thames, and the crews 
landed and took Canterbury and London by storm ; 
but " King Ethelwulf, with his son Ethelbald, with 
the army of the West Saxons, fought against them at 
Ockley, and there made the greatest slaughter among the 
heathen army " [we Saxons are Christians by this time !] 
" that we have heard reported to the present day, and there 
got the victory." 3 

But the "heathen men" Were not to be cowed by a 
single victory. They meant to find a home, and in choosing 
one, were not inferior in taste, perseverance, or daring, to 
the Saxons. In A.D. 853 there was more hard fighting " in 

1 Sax. Chron. ann. 787. 2 Sax. Chron. ann. 840. 

3 Ibid. ann. 851. 



IIO THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Thanet ; " and two years later it is significantly recorded : 
" This year the heathen men for the first time remained 
over winter in Sheppey." x Ten years further on, " the 
heathen army" again "sat down in Thanet," "and the 
men of Kent promised them money for peace " ! 2 The 
heathen men were clearly improving their fortunes. 

Ethelred, brother of the great King Alfred that was 
coming, now ascended the throne of Wessex — now the 
leading kingdom of the so-called Heptarchy — and in the 
year succeeding his accession (a.D. 866) an army of north- 
men, numbering 20,000 men, landed in East Anglia, under 
the command of Inguar and Ubbo,sons of Ragnar Lodbrog, 
and at York the day declared in favour of the invaders. 3 
A second fearful encounter ended in the same way. The 
Saxons lose heart : many fly, but a few, true and brave, 
resolve to make another attempt, and conquer or die. The 
latter they are destined to do. Through a whole day they 
continue immovable against a numerous host ; but the 
"heathen men" feigning a retreat, the patriots fall into 
the trap, are surrounded, and cut down almost to a man. 
The victors spread havoc far and wide. No lives are spared. 
Town after town, fastness after fastness, fall into their 
hands. The kingdom of the East Angles, as well as North- 
umbria, becomes subject to the Danes. 

The army of locusts moves on — eating up every green 
thing. In A.D. 871, " the Pagan army of hateful memory," 
as Asser calls it, invades the kingdom of Wessex ; but at 
Reading meets with a severe check. " The Christians 
gained the victory." 4 And again at or near Ashdun or 
Ashdown, when young Alfred first encountered them, "the 
Pagans, not able to bear the attacks of the Christians, and 

1 Ibid. arm. 855. 2 Ibid. ann. 865. 

3 Asser, Life of Alfred, ann. 867; Sax. Chron. same year. 

4 Life of Alfred, ann. 871 ; Sax. Chron. ibid. 



KING ALFRED. Ill 

having lost the greater part of their army, took to a dis- 
graceful flight." 1 Their bodies covered the plain of Ash- 
down. In this one year eight battles were fought, and 
before its end peace was concluded : but, by the terms of 
this peace, the Danes were allowed to remain in the country 
— though still a hostile force under arms. Two years after 
this "peace," the Danes took possession of the kingdom 
of Mercia — the last founded state of the Heptarchy — and 
the year following reconquered the Northumbrian kingdom, 
and ravaged the British kingdom of Strathclyde. 2 

Thus, while Rollo the Dane was invading France, and 
forming a part of Neustria into Normandie, his countrymen 
were spreading desolation over Britain, and both alike 
were preparing new forces which by-and-bye were to meet 
in deadly combat on the field of Hastings, and inaugurate 
a new dynasty and a new nobility for England ! 

The Danes swept over the country in all directions, now 
obtaining advantages, now encountering reverses ; but 
wherever they went their presence was like the blast of 
the lightning. At last King Alfred rose to be the hero of 
the Saxon race. He made prodigious exertions by sea 
and land to meet the emergency. He collected supplies, 
built a navy, organized troops, fought battles, and displayed 
unparalleled personal bravery and endurance. In a time 
of extraordinary stress and agony, when his own subjects, 
instead of bravely aiding his efforts were indifferent and 
mutinous, and Saxon liberty and Christianity itself in 
Britain seemed to be lost, Alfred, in bitterness of spirit, 
retired into the woods of Somersetshire — probably to 
tear himself away from the strife of parties and unavail- 
ing care of the world for a season, and in the enjoy- 
ment of internal peace to hold calm communion with 

1 Sax. Chron. arm. 871. 
2 Asser, Life of Alfr. arm. 875 ; Sax. Chron. same year. 



112 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Heaven. Here after a while, accompanied by a few of 
his faithful followers, and an ever-increasing crowd of 
fugitives, he led the life of an unknown guerilla chief. 
But in the spring of the year 878, he came forth from his 
retreat, and was at once surrounded by great hosts of the 
" men of Somersetshire and the men of Wiltshire " — 
almost all of the Ancient British race — who had looked 
upon their king as dead. "They were joyful at his 
presence," and the recalcitrant Saxons of all Wessex now 
eagerly followed him to meet the enemy. Near Westbury, 
probably on the eminence of Eddington Hill, a great 
battle was fought, which ended in a complete victory for 
Alfred. 1 Gudrun, king of the Danes, now sued for peace, 
and promised to receive baptism as a bond of friendship. 

The great army of the "heathen men," however, was 
soon again in action. Baptism and oaths were forgotten, 
pillage and bloodshed were resumed. After ravaging 
great part of the country, they crossed the Channel into 
France ; they returned again to England in A.D. 893, having 
apparently never disbanded, landing at Tynemouth in 250 
ships. Accumulating trials now drew the divided Saxon 
states more closely together. The old dominions of Kent 
and Sussex sought union under Alfred, whose name and 
character, notwithstanding the stringency of his rule, 
seemed to charm away hostility, and Wessex now embraced 
the whole of Anglo-Saxon England. The Danes had thus 
succeeded in for ever obliterating the ancient divisions of 
the Heptarchy. In A.D. 901, however, after many years of 
various toil, in war, in government, in study, the good and 
great Alfred died, "six days before the mass of All 
Saints." He " was king over the whole English nation, 
except that part which was under the dominion of the 
Danes ; and he held the kingdom one year-and-a-half less 
1 Sax. Chron. ann. 878. 



EXTORTION — MASSACRE — TRIUMPH. 113 

than thirty years/' 1 The death day of this brave and 
pious king was a dark day for the land ! 

For thirty years after the death of Alfred England 
continued to be a battle-field. The sword during this 
weary time did not rest in its scabbard, nor the blood of 
Saxon and Dane cease to flow. But the balance of advan- 
tage was in favour of the Dane. The English had now 
been reduced to the miserable necessity of systematically 
purchasing peace for money — so exhausted were they of 
soldiers and so broken in heart. At first ^10,000 was 
given, then ^48,000. The Danes for a little while retired, 
but soon got a pretext for returning. They continually 
increased their price. They next extorted £ 1 60,000, and a 
fixed annual tribute of ^48,000. Thus was the country, 
already exhausted of men, completely drained of its money. 
Rage and impotency now entered into alliance, and the 
massacre of the Danes was resolved upon. Many thousands 
of their warriors unquestionably perished by this dreadful 
deed ; but so far from crushing, it only exasperated that 
people, both in England and abroad, to more terrible deeds 
of vengeance — " outrages even beyond the usual tenor 
of the Danish cruelty." The end was not far. Sweyn, 
King of Denmark, in the year 1013, was placed on the 
English throne. Canute the Great, his son, became king 
of all England in A.D. 10 17. 

Now what very forcibly strikes the thoughtful reader is 
the fact that these usurpations were effected by a compara- 
tively small number of strangers. The Danes, it is true, 
came over in vastly greater numbers than the Saxons and 
Angles had done ; but the Danes that came over in ships 
— though these ships were numbered by the hundred at a 
time — were but a handful compared with the people, now 

1 Sax. Cluvii. aim. fjor. 



114 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

grown numerous on the soil, whom they contrived to sub- 
jugate. They were in fact an organized horde of adven- 
turers, who, by overmatching the military force of the 
Anglo-Saxons, usurped dominion over the land. The 
Danish conquest was a parallel with the Saxon, effected 
by a few against a numerous and more cultured people ; 
but students of English history have not always kept in 
mind that it was effected in less time and with greater 
ease. 

Long and desolating wars, such as those of the Danish 
period, are doubtless very destructive of population. But 
as both sides would suffer about equally, the proportion at 
the end, as between Saxon and Dane, would be about the 
same as at the beginning. But since these were both alike 
of Teutonic race, if their united number at the end was 
much larger than the Anglo-Saxon population itself (with 
its ancient British element omitted) was at the beginning, 
this excess must in fairness be allowed as again of Teutonic 
over Celtic blood through the Danish conquest. That there 
was a gain we admit ; but the gain was small. 

Both the Danish and Anglo-Saxon regimes were purely 
military creations. The superiority which prevailed was 
simply superiority of fighting force. It had no relation to 
preponderance of population. The British element of 
population was by far the more copious in Saxon times. 
The British, with its admixture of Anglo-Saxon, was in- 
conceivably the greater in Danish times. The change was 
a change of ruling men — of legal, political, and ecclesi- 
astical arrangement and policy. How does this tell upon 
. the question in hand ? 



"5 



CHAPTER IV. 
Tpie Norman Invasion. 

It has already been mentioned that the Normans, the 
next invaders of England, were of kindred blood with the 
Danes, as both were with the Angles, Jutes, Frisians, and 
Saxons, who had now lost the ascendancy in Britain. 

Rollo, a freebooter, the ancestor of William the Con- 
queror, had fought for himself a settlement in Neustria 
in or about the years 898 — 91 1. 1 A hundred and fifty 
years after, that is, in the )' - ear 1066, his descendant William 
obtains the title " Conqusestor," and sits on the throne of 
England. This great event of the Conquest was preceded 
by no long-continued struggle. The fighting was, appro- 
priately, between Northmen and Northmen ; the prize 
to be won was the throne of a country to which neither had 
any right beyond that which the sharpest and longest 
sword confers. 

A time of fearful retribution now comes upon the English 
race. Already crushed to the very dust by the strong arm 
of the Dane, they are destined to still deeper humiliation 
from the heel of the contemptuous Norman. In their fall 
before the Dane, they had the consolation of seeing the 
victor adopt their language; but now their language is 
cast aside, as fit only to be articulated by "ceorls"and 
mean persons. Normans become the great, the "high 

1 Thierry, Conquete d'Angleterre, liv. ii. 

I 2 



Il6 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

men/' and the Saxons are deemed " low men," as Robert 
of Gloucester hath it in his Chronicle : — 

" The Folc of Normandie 
Among us woneth yet, and schulleth ever wo : 
Of the Normannes beth thys hey men, that beth of thys lond, 
And the lowe men of Saxons." 

Ethelred, the Saxon King, while less than a match for 
the Danes, who, under Sweyn, made their triumphant pro- 
gress through the land, had rashly engaged in hostilities 
against Richard II., Duke of Normandy, but this dispute 
being arranged, had, with better policy, sought the hand of 
Emma, the Duke's sister, in marriage; and thus, in A.D. 
1002, the Northmen of England, and the Northmen of 
France became re-united, and the foundation was laid, 
which, sixty years afterwards, supported the claims of "Wil- 
liam of Normandy to the throne of England. Ethelred,. 
by and by deserted by his subjects — who, by force or choice, 
became obedient to Danish rule — fled with his family to 
Normandy, and Sweyn first, and then Canute, obtained 
the title of King of all England. 

Canute, who, on the death of Ethelred the Saxon, had 
married his widow, Emma, of Normandy — so easily did 
ladies of that rank and time transfer their affections ! — 
died in the year 1035, leaving a son by Emma, called 
Hardicanute. Harold, an illegitimate son, first became 
king for four years, and then Hardicanute for two ; after 
him, his half-brother, Edward the " Confessor," son of 
Ethelred the Saxon, and the last of his race on the English 
throne. Edward invited many Normans to England, and 
gave them offices, emoluments, dignities. Being himself 
the son of a Norman princess, and having spent the whole 
of his early life in Normandy, he was more a Norman than 
an English King ; and the fact was not unfelt by his 
subjects. The preference he ostentatiously gave to Norman 



THE WAY FOR WILLIAM PREPARED. I I 7 

favourites, and to the Norman - French language and 
manners, expedited the progress of their disaffection, 
•and prepared the way for the great events that were 
approaching. 1 

When William came over on a visit of ceremony to the 
Court of Edward — not without secret ambitious purpose — 
he found his countrymen teeming in every department of 
the public service. Normans commanded the fleet at 
Dover, Norman soldiers commanded the forts at Canterbury, 
Norman captains and Bishops came to salute him. 2 
" Edward's favourites came to pay their respects to the 
chief of their native country, and thronged round their 
natural lord." William appeared in England more a King 
than Edward himself. William, with eagle-eye, saw his 
advantage, and no longer despaired of one day being King of 
England : " but he said not a word." 3 

When Edward died, William averred that the King had 
by will made him his successor ; and Harold, the illustrious 
son of the noble Earl Godwin, chief of the Saxon party in 
England, had been induced by William during his visit in 
France to swear a dreadful oath over relics of saints, that 
he would promote his claims. The nation, however, 
thinking they had had enough of the Normans, crowned 
Harold King. William, when he heard the news, was 
deeply agitated. Fie immediately began preparations for 
invading England, and conquering its crown by main force. 
What to him was the will of the people ? Such was the 
prologue to the drama about to be acted. 

Unfortunately for Harold, his eldest brother Tostig, 

1 Guilielm. Malmesb. De Gcsla Re,^. lib. ii. ; Thierry, Conquete d'Angl. 
liv. ii. 

- Roger de Hoveden, Annates. 

3 Ingulf of Croyland, Hist. i. 65. " De successioni autcm regni, spes 
adhuc aut mentio nulla facta inter cos fuit." 



Il8 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

this juncture, with an army of Norwegians and Fleming s, 
set up in opposition to him in the North — probably not 
without collusion with William the Norman. Many battles 
were fought between the two brothers. The Danish portion 
of the population, especially in Mercia, gave Harold little 
support. Northumbria was kept from joining the enemy 
only by strong Saxon garrisons. Harold's strength was 
thus wearing away, and William looked on, " biding his 
time." At last he saw that the moment to act had come. A 
great fleet of 400 ships, and more than 1,000 transport 
boats, containing, as is commonly reported, an army of 
60,000 men, 1 crossed the Channel, and disembarked at 
Pevensey, near Hastings, on the 28th September, 1066, 
only two days after Tostig's defeat by Harold at Stamford 
Bridge. Harold hastened to the South. On the evening of 
the 13th October, the Norman army and the army of the 
King of England encamped, confronting each other. 

The morning of the 14th October dawned, and William, 
mounted on a Spanish charger, harangued his soldiers. 
The terrible man said : " Remember to fight well and put 
all to death ; for if we conquer we shall be all rich. What 
I gain, you will gain ; if I conquer, you will conquer ; if I 
take their land, you shall have it," &c. 2 The conflict was 
stubborn and bloody in the extreme. The Normans were 
repeatedly repulsed. Once they fled in a panic, when the 
false alarm was given that Duke William himself was 
slain. At last, however, the tide of battle turned against 
the English. King Harold and his two brothers fell ; the 
English army was routed ; the Normans won the victory 

1 This number, however, is considered bymany historians exaggerated,, 
and 25,000 to be more like the truth. See Macintosh's Hist, of England? 
vol. i. p. 97, and Sismondi, Histoirc des Francais, iv. 353. 

2 Thierry, Conquete d'Angl. liv. iii. ; Roman de Ron, ii. 18 7, et seq. ; 
Chron. de Normand. Rec. Hist, de la France, xiii. 7.32. 



THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 119 

of Hastings, and, without further controversy, the crown of 
England was placed on the head of William Conquaestor. 
This, in brief, was the Norman Conquest} 

Now, what is most pertinent here to remark as touching 
our proper subject is this : The Normans who conquered 
England in 1066 were William of Normandy and his 60,000 
more or less fighting men. A host of these was left dead 
on the field of Hastings. The Norman accession to the 
population of England, therefore, even if all these warriors 
had been of Norman blood, was not relatively large. If 
we allow again that already, through the favour of Ethelred, 
of Emma of Normandy, and of Edward the Confessor, 
many thousand Normans had found home and fortune in 
the land, and also that after the accession of William 
thousands more would flock to sun themselves in the 
light he had created ; still the number, compared with the 
whole people of England, was not large. The power of 
the Normans, even far more conspicuously than that of the 
Danes, was not the power of numbers, but of individual 
will and heroism on the part of William and his followers 
on the field of Hastings. 

But this number, whether great or small, is, by authority 
of history, to be materially reduced when calculated for 
the purposes of an ethnological inquiry. The fact is, that 
a very considerable proportion of William's army was 
made up of genuine Breton soldiers. Many of his most 
renowned captains, who became historic names among the 
" Norman " aristocracy of England, were of pure Celtic 
blood — cousins of the people of Wales.. 2 Each of these 

1 See Dugdale, Monast. Anglic, vol. 1. 312; Chron. de Normand. xiii. 
235, 236, &c. ; Guil. Pictav. p. 202 ; Math. Westmonast. Flor. Hist. p. 
223; Guil. Malmesb. Hist. p. 102; Math. Paris, i. 2. 

- Comp. Thierry, Norm. Conq. i. 1G1-4 ; Palgrave, Normandy and 
England, iii. 446 ; Turner, Hist. Angl. Sax. ii. 335. 



120 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

brought his company of retainers, also of Celtic blood, and 
the whole together would constitute no slight portion of 
the traditional 60,000 "Norman" warriors of the 14th 
October, 1066. This subject shall receive careful analysis 
in its proper place, when we come to discuss the ethno- 
logical influence of the Norman Conquest. Meantime, it 
is just possible that not a few of the foremost among 
the English Aristocracy who are proud of tracing their 
descent from a " Norman Origin " must be allowed to be, 
in fact, neither English nor Norman, but authentic Celts 
from Brittany, Poitou, Anjou\ Normandie, and, through pre- 
vious emigration, from Wales itself. 

Then it must be remembered that as the old Netistrians, 
over whom Rollo had established sovereignty, were in the 
main descendants of the ancient Gauls, it follows that the 
mass of William's common soldiery, though Norman in 
name, were of Celtic race. But of this hereafter. 



Part III. 
Hfyt Argument toe tKbmtxttm of &a«. 



PART III. 

The Argument for Admixture of Race. 

The Question, To what Extent is the English Nation 

of Celtic Origin ? Discussed. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Historical Argument. 




section I. 

The Compound " British " People. 

FTER the details already given of the arrival of 
so many tribes and nations in Britain, it will 
excite no surprise if we now speak of the British 
people as "compound." The object of the sketches of the 
preceding pages is to lay clown an historical and ethno- 
logical basis upon which to plant the argument of " Ad- 
mixture," on which we are now specially entering. That 
the English are a mixed people, all allow. It is difficult 
to mention a section of the human family so heterogenous, 
unless it be the Anglo-American. It will by and by appear 
that the term "British " is more appropriate as a designa- 
tion of the people of England than the term " English," 



124 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and that "Anglo-Saxon" is sanctioned by nothing but an 
unhistorical usage. 

The Celtic race — itself a compound of multitudinous 
elements — forms the first stratum. Next over that are 
placed the Romans. Then come Saxons, Jutes, Angles, 
Danes, Normans, Flemings, in quick and crowding succes- 
sion, including fractions of numerous less important com- 
munities, but nearly all more or less connected by a link of 
Teutonic kinship. 

We have already recognized the fact that at a period of 
great remoteness these two generic stocks, the Celtic and 
Teutonic, would, if traced backwards, meet in one. That 
period lay in pre-historic times ; but the lines drawn by 
history, although they disappear from our view, are con- 
verging lines, and must as unavoidably meet in a point as 
the rays of a candle, or the channels of an arterial system. 
The languages of all these people also display such con- 
gruities as justify their classification (along with many 
others) under one common name as " Indo-European. " 
Very remote, doubtless, was the time when these languages 
all sprung from one dialect — itself again a variety of a still 
remoter speech. Less remote by many ages was the point 
of divergence of Saxons and Danes, Iberic CeltaB, and 
Cymry ; and still more recent — so recent as to have left 
unobliterated the genealogies of particular households — 
the separation of the two Norse lines of Danes in England, 
and Normans in France. Not much further removed was 
the point of departure of the Celts of Armorica who came 
over in William's army, and the Celts of the West of 
England and of Wales, who met them on the field of 
Hastings. 

But, however remote or approximate the points of 
departure of these fractions of the human race, their con- 



THE COMPOUND BRITISH PEOPLE. 125 

vergence and amalgamation in Britain has been the work 
of a few hundred years. The whole operation took place 
between the fifth and eleventh centuries. The cementing 
has been perfect — the elements of the mosaic work, except 
in fine shadings, are now happily undistinguishable. Some 
preponderating race may have gained in strength ; the 
features of another, weaker and less numerous, may have 
paled and disappeared. But each has been influenced by 
all the rest. The foundations of the great nation — the 
most painstaking, the noblest in valour, charity, religion 
on earth — to which, indeed, our patriotism, perhaps insular 
in its excess, is apt to grudge no eulogy — has been laid in 
concrete. Its greatness and solidity are partly attributable 
to the smallness and variety of its component parts : for it 
has actualized what was symbolized in the Roman/^ra — ■ 
it has united in one the forces of many. 

But while we as a people are thus furnished with a 
ground of boasting*, we are by the same circumstance also 
somewhat humbled. We have little claim, as "English," to 
a long and remote ancestry. Our pedigree is ridiculously 
short ; and the parties concerned in "founding the family" 
are not all of the sort to be proud of. At the door of the 
Herald's College what are we compared with Jews, Chinese,. 
and Indians r We must find a ground of boasting, if 
boast we will, in the fact that we are novz homines ', or to 
speak in a figure, that we are the harmony arising from 
the junction of all sounds — the pencil of light produced by 
combination of all the rays. The " Ancient Britons " have 
receded into the shade; the Saxons find their name a 
dispute among schools of antiquarians and philologists : 
the Danes and Normans are only spoken of as a 
foreign people who once held temporary and usurping 
rule ; and the resultant community which in its com- 



126 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

prehensive bosom holds them all in one is called the 
English Nation — 

" Sic rerum summa novatur 

Semper, et inter se mortales mutua vivunt. 

Augescunt alias gentes, alias minuuntur, 

Inque brevi spatio mutantur ssecla animantum ; 

Et quasi cursores, vital lampada tradunt." — Lucretius. 

Again, it will not appear strange that this compound 
race is denominated the British people. 

It is of no use pleading that we are called British because 
we are inhabitants of Britain. People are not called after 
countries, but countries after people. The French are not 
■called so from France, nor the Welsh from Wales, nor 
Scots from Scotland. 

The truth, which lives in the inner sanctuary of history 
will in one way or other assert itself, and it is the business 
of science to give it expression. Names, as memorials 
of the past, are true witnesses, because imposed in the past, 
for simple purposes, and with no view to meet and 
humour the conveniences or prejudices of the present. 
The Ancient Britons, whether or not they are allowed 
to have formed the staple of the people of England during 
the first 700 years of our era, are commemorated in a 
singular way in one of the most familiar designations of 
our nation — The British. This fact contains, at the very 
least, a suggestion. The Angli, the most influential tribe 
of the Jute- Anglo-Saxon invaders, are the tribe whom his- 
tory has continued to honour beyond their Germanic 
brethren by crystallizing their name in that of England, 
and of the English} The Jutes, who with Hengist founded 
the state of Kent, have now no memorial in our topo- 
graphical nomenclature, the Ancient British name of Kent 
^having to this day asserted its place, and effaced all traces 

1 Comp. Dr. Bosworth, Compcnd. Grammar of Anglo-Saxon, p. ix. 



THE NAMES "BRITISH" AND "ENGLISH." 127 

of the conqueror's presence. The Frisians, who, under the 
command of Ella, set up the South Saxon kingdom, are 
allowed a faint inscription on their tomb in the name of 
Sussex. The extensive and powerful kingdom of Wessex — 
Cerdic's great achievement — is well-nigh forgotten, having 
no modern name to commemorate its glory — its very 
capital, Winchester, having throughout, and down to the 
present day retained its Ancient British name. 1 The East 
Saxons still live to memory in the county name, Essex. 
The Ancient Britons and the Angles alone are privileged 
to furnish titles, the one to the whole British people, and 
the other to the whole territory of England. 

This may be but the straw on the stream ; but the philo- 
sophic historian may see in it much of meaning. It may 
be argued that the Angli only by accident gave their name 
to England. Had their youths not appeared as slaves in 
the Roman market-place, Greg'ory had never sent his 
missionaries to convert the Anglo-Saxons, nor entitled 
their king " Rex Anglorum" ; nor would the Church ever 
after in her documents have maintained these designations, 
and thus led to their unconscious adoption in after ages 
by Briton, Saxon, Dane, and Norman. The people, it may 
be urged, are called "British," and the island "Britain," 
from the ancient name Britannia, and that name is derived 
nobody knows whence — perhaps from britJi, because the 
natives painted their bodies in various colours, 2 or from 
Prydain, son of Aedd the Great, 3 or from some other thing 
or person. This is the old "Dryasdust" method— very 
learned, doubtless, but leaving nothing proved. The fact 

1 Welsh, Caer Went; the Latin modified this into Venta Belgarutn., 
thence Sax. JKm-ton-ceaster, Manchester. The root is gwyn, white, 
fair. The Vcncti of Brittany, the Vcncti of Italy, Vmetia, or Venice at 
the mouth of the Po, l6'««lotia, Givynedd, Gwent, in Wales, are all of 
identical derivation. 

8 So Camden thinks. 3 So the Welsh Triad says. 



128 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

remains unaltered : the people found here by the Romans 
were then called Britanni — whether that name was given 
them by themselves, or by the ' Phoenicians or Greeks, may 
be uncertain — and the people found here to-day, notwith- 
standing all admixtures, are called the British people, and 
havea pride in stylingthemselves "true Britons." OurQueen 
is called her Britannic Majesty. The Englishman who is. 
proud of his descent from pirates, may associate the title of 
the Sovereign with the territory, forgetting that this, as a. 
new application of an old name, will not really serve his 
purpose. This name, British, Britannic, is old, has been 
adopted by consent, without the force of authority — even 
in spite of the political and ecclesiastical prestige of the: 
names Angli and England — adopted from instinctive per- 
ception of its suitableness as the description of a people 
whose infancy was purely " Briton," and whose manhood 
has reached its proportions through the vigorous blood and 
healthful constitution which that infancy imparted, together 
with the new blood, wholesome nourishment, and severe- 
gymnastics, of subsequent times. 



SECTION II. 

The extent to which Britain was populated at the time of the 
Roman invasion. 

How large was the population at the outset, when foreign 
materials began to pour in ? If small, then the accessions 
in Roman and subsequent times, though not in themselves 
great, would relatively be so. If large, and this can be 
made to appear, then we have already one of the bases of 
our argument laid. 

Again, it must be remembered, there is a possibility that 
in Roman times the Celtic population of Britain, large 



POPULATION OF BRITAIN. 129 

though it might be at first, was by the invaders materially 
reduced. This might be accomplished by expatriation of 
the natives, or by such measures of severity as would 
cause them to waste away. What are the facts which bear 
upon this phase of the question r 

We propose in this section to show : I. That at the time 
when Julius Caesar arrived, Britain was generally populated. 
2. That the expulsion or destruction of the native popu- 
lation was not a part of Roman policy. 

1. Britain at the coming of the Romans was generally 
populated. 

This position would admit of strong a priori proof, 
supposing that positive statements in its favour were 
wanting. But let us look at the facts. 

More than three hundred years prior to Caesar's invasion, 
this island was the home of a people who, according to 
Herodotus, exported metals to the East ; and who were 
described by Himilco the Carthaginian navigator as a 
" numerous race, endowed with spirit, with no little expert- 
ness, all busy with the cares of trade." This shadows 
forth to us something like a settled state of society. This 
people, even then, were not mere wandering hordes, 
existing only here and there on fertile spots, and gaining 
a precarious subsistence from the chase, or from their flocks. 
A taste for trade, and arrangements whereby commerce 
with distant nations can be carried on, are conditions 
befitting a population numerous enough and settled enough 
to be under government. If the tribes of Britain, in the 
time of Herodotus and Himilco, were numerous and settled, 
is it too much to conjecture that in 300 years more they 
must have greatly advanced, both in number and capacity, 
especially since, by trading, they were brought into con- 
tact with the most enlightened people of Asia, or perhaps 
of the world — the Phoenicians : 

K 



130 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

But we are not left to conjecture. Allowing the 300 
years to be out of the calculation, we have later specific de- 
scriptions of the state of the Britons which leave no room 
for uncertainty. An eye-witness — a man whose habits,, 
professional duty, and interest alike combined to make 
him a careful observer, and whose prejudices as an enemy 
were not likely to impart a favourable glow to his picture, 
has sent down to us certain interesting particulars on this 
point. True, Ccesar with his own eyes saw but little of the 
island, or of its people. He never set his foot in the Mid- 
land parts ; never saw the Cymry of the West and of 
Wales. But Caesar saw much, and made careful inquiries 
from others respecting the extent to which the island was 
peopled. His first duty as general would lead to this. He 
ascertained the names, localities, and importance of the 
various tribes, far into the interior ; and the kind of rough 
census he thus gathered is the best that has come down to 
our time. It is impossible to take exception to that census. 

Csesar tells us that when he arrived (B.C. 55), Britain zuas- 
•very largely peopled. " The population is infinite, and the 
houses very numerous, built after the manner of the Gauls; 
the quantity of cattle is considerable. The provinces re- 
mote from the sea produce tin, and those on the coast iron. 1 
The inhabitants of Cantium (Kent), which lies wholly on 
the sea coast, are the most civilized of all the Britons, and 

differ but little in their manners from the Gauls 

The greater part of those within the country never sow 
their lands, but live on flesh and milk." 2 

1 De Bell. Gall. v. 12. Strabo says [Geogr. iv. 197), that the houses of 
the Gauls were generally circular, boarded, and covered with straw. 
Diodorus Siculus also informs us that the cottages of the Britons were 
constructed of wood and covered with straw. Can anything much better 
be said of the greater number of the houses of our English peasantry 
of the present day? 

2 De Bell. Gall. v. 14. 



OPPOSITION TO CiESARS PROGRESS. 131 

Note that Caesar's account of the population as being 
very great, even " infinite," and the buildings or houses 
" very numerous," is not from the legitimate construction 
of his language to be limited to that part called Cantium, 
where the people were most like those of Gaul, but 
is applied generally to the island. Much of the informa- 
tion he thus embodies in his history he had received 
from others ; but as a keen observer and cautious general, 
assiduous in the employment of spies and in collect- 
ing particulars from all available quarters respecting 
the countries he sought to subdue, he must be taken 
as an adequate authority for the external aspect of 
the island, though not for all its institutions and customs. 
The designation, position, resources, and warlike reputation 
of tribes, would be amongst the easiest points to be 
ascertained, while upon habits of domestic life, and rites of 
religion, he might occasionally fall into grave error. It is 
true he may have been tempted to represent the population 
as large, in order to add importance to the difficulties he 
had to meet, and the measure of success he had obtained ; 
but upon this point we have no evidence, and mere surmise 
is no argument. 

Of the southern tribes with whom Csesar came in contact, 
the Cantii, who were by him distinguished as the most 
civilized, were not those who offered the strongest impedi- 
ment to his progress. Did he call them more civilized 
because they more tamely submitted ; or did they so submit 
because they were less powerful than the tribes of the 
interior? These latter, whatever their mode of life, were 
at least the most difficult to overcome, even after Kent had 
been secured as a base of operations. The Cantii, like the 
Gauls, soon came to terms, and gave hostages during his 
first visit. Penetrating a little further inland on his second 
visit, he found no such ready compliance. The Trinobantes 

K 2 



132 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

(Ptolemy's TpwodvTes) in Essex, the Cenimagni or Iceni of 
Norfolk and Suffolk, the Segontiaci of Berks and Hants, 
the Ancalites of Wilts and Berks, the Bibroci, the Cassi, 
and others, were stubborn, unmanageable tribes. What- 
ever people were the subjects of the brave Cassibelaunus 
(Caswallon) — and it is difficult to determine their identity — 
they were beyond doubt a spirited and powerful community. 
Caesar ought to have immortalized their name, if only for 
the reason that they gave the Roman legions the best 
opportunity of showing their power in battle. The bravery 
and resolution of these people — supposed to be the Cassi, 
and the Catyeuchlani (Ptol. KarueuxWoi) inhabiting parts of 
Herts, Bucks, Beds, and Northamptonshire — together with 
the power gained by confederation, unity of action, and 
command in the person of Cassibelaunus, proved a worthy 
match to the forces which Caesar brought over on his second 
expedition. 

There are, in fact, good reasons for believing that the 
Roman general found the Britons so numerous, brave, and 
powerful, while the hope of booty which their patriarchal 
mode of life afforded in case of conquest was so slight, that 
he was glad to leave the island with a show of triumph, 
rather than risk more prolonged and unprofitable fighting. 
The Romans, therefore, soon withdrew, and offered the 
Britons no further molestation until the reign of Claudius, 
more than ninety years after the invasion by Caesar. 

Strabo, who nourished soon after Caesar, in his work on 
Geography, speaking of Britain, says that a great part of 
the island had become well known to the Romans through 
the collectors of revenue. This is an important indirect 
testimony respecting population. 

That the Britons had generally submitted to the Romans 
before Caesar's departure, may be admitted. At the same 
time we may mark what submission in that case signified. 



THE BRITONS MADE " TRIBUTAREE." 1 33 

It signified simply that the chief states professed friend- 
ship, gave hostages, and promised to pay tribute. Tech- 
nically, they were tributarily who continued to live under 
their own laws and government, and not vectigales, who 
were subject to more severe exactions. No change had 
taken place in the government of the kingdoms or states ; 
but a new class of officers were appointed as representa- 
tives of the Roman power, whose duty it was to proceed 
through the country under the protection of the native 
rulers, to receive the tribute. If the greater part of the 
island had become known to the Romans through these 
representatives of the Procurator, it must have been capable 
of yielding taxes — for on this ground alone would they make 
their visitations. If capable of yielding taxes, then there 
was a population, and not merely a population, but one 
that was taxable — in other words, a population possessed 
of goods, engaged in trade, and under distinct and fixed 
government. We may notice, in passing, a remark of 
Strabo's which shows the slightness of the hold established 
by Caesar on the Britons. After saying that " divine Caesar 
returned, having effected nothing of consequence, nor pro- 
ceeded far into the country," he observes concerning the 
temper of the Britons, "they bear moderate taxes," and 
adds, that these were laid on " imports and exports from 
Celtica." The words which follow, are significant as not 
obscurely intimating the mildness of the Roman rule, and 
the careful abstinence from force and provocation observed 
in the raising of taxes ; " it would require at least one 
legion and some cavalry to enforce tribute <£opos, (Jn'b/ifum) y 
and some danger would be incurred if force were cm- 
ployed." 1 The revenue raised, then, was not the tributum 
proper, but simply an impost on trade, and this was raised 
under the sanctions of a treaty, and without the use of force. 
1 Strabo, Gcogr. lib. iv. 278. 



134 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Britain, in the time of Caesar and Strabo, therefore, was, 
from their showing, a place of large and widely distributed 
population, whose power required that Rome should handle 
it with discretion. 

2. The expulsion or destruction of the natives was no 
part of the Roman policy. Neither in Csesar's time, nor 
at any subsequent stage, was there any attempt at expa- 
triation or extirpation, To attempt the former were in 
direct contravention of the invariable policy of Rome. 
To attempt the latter would be absurd ; for the island was 
large, and the natives myriads in number, while the in- 
vaders were few, and their presence often elsewhere 
demanded by public troubles. 

The policy of the Romans was, to subjugate in order to 
use. Hence, they sought to encourage, rather than retard, 
growth of population, Their keen insight had penetrated 
into that principle of political economy now universally 
recognised — that public prosperity and increase of popu- 
lation go together. Dead men pay no taxes. Broad acres, 
if not tilled, produce no corn. The extirpation or exile of 
the natives would leave the fields uncultivated and the 
flocks dispersed ; and such fields and flocks would pay no 
imposts. 

Caesar manifested every desire to cultivate the friendship 
and alliance of the Britons, if they only consented to 
recognise the supremacy of Rome. He protected Mandu- 
bratius, King of the Trinobantes, and established his 
authority as that of an ally of the Romans against sur- 
rounding, and, as yet, unsubdued states. 1 In this, he 
observed the policy of his countrymen. Not only the 
people, but their institutions, their religion, their language, 
were, as far as practicable, always held in respect ; and 
1 De Bell. Gal. v. 20. 



THE BRITONS INSTITUTIONS RESPECTED. 135 

thus the prosperity which lay at the basis of revenue, and 
the goodwill which was the best guarantee against revolt, 
were promoted. As remarked by Niebuhr, the power of 
Rome over her " colonies " was in theory, and generally 
in fact, " the supremacy of the parental state, to which the 
colonies, like sons in a family, even after they had .grown 
to maturity, continued unalterably subject." As to the 
provinczcE, restraint here was still more mild. But in the 
crude state of things in Britain, as left by Caesar, there 
was neither the shadow of a colonia nor provincia, but 
simply the general recognition by the natives of Roman 
supremacy, the delivering of hostages as guarantees of 
fidelity to treaties, and the payment of certain imposts in 
aid of the public revenue. 

The wisdom displayed by the Romans in the govern- 
ment of conquered provinces, has never been surpassed. 
In science, in the industrial arts, in the conception of 
liberty and the practice of morals, the Romans have 
doubtless been left behind by ourselves and other nations ; 
but in dexterous use of force in the acquisition of empire, 
and in the adaptation and administration of government, it 
may be doubted whether they have been outshone by any. 
As their own poet has said : — 

" Excudent alii spirantia mollius ccra, 
Credo equidem ; vivos ducent de marmore vultus ; 
Orabunt causas melius; ccelique meatus 
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent : 
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; 
Hae tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem, 
Parcere subjectis, et debellare supcrbos." : 

Mneid t vi. S47. 

1 " Let others better mould the running mass 
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass; 
Ami soften into llcsh a marble face : 
Plead better at the bar, describe the skies, 
And when the stars descend and when they rise. 



136 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Other ancient nations often pursued the blind policy of 
exterminating or reducing to slavery the conquered. The 
Romans no sooner completed a conquest than they sought 
to pacify, often to initiate into the rights and immunities 
of citizenship. This policy may have originally arisen, as 
M. Guizot conjectures, from the situation of most of the 
neighbouring tribes on which Rome first made war. 1 They 
were dwellers in towns. Caere, which gave refuge to the 
Vestal Virgins when the Celts of Gaul took Rome (B.C. 390), 
was the first town which preserved its laws and magistrates,, 
and was honoured with the privileges of citizenship. 2 
Others soon followed ; and the precedents worked so well 
that a rule of policy was the result. 

The Romans, however much they may have striven after 
political solidarity, seem never to have conceived the idea 
of an Italian Nationality. From the beginning to the very- 
end they viewed the empire, the republic, or kingdom, 
whichever it happened for the moment to be, more in the 
light of an agglomeration of states, than of a huge and 
homogeneous unity. Hence it was that they never used 
their power to crush and efface the institutions of conquered 
tribes, and reduce the whole to one level of uniformity. 
Liberty, independence, and territory were alone sacrificed 
by submission to Rome ; life, religion, language, all the 
rights which the laws conferred, and the unfailing favour 
and protection of Rome were guaranteed. 



But, Rome, 'tis thine alone with' awful sway, 
To rule mankind, and make the world obey : 
To tame the proud, the fettered slave to free ; 
These are imperial arts, and worthy thee." 

1 Ess. stir VHistoire de France ; prem. Ess. p. 5. 

2 Livy, v. 40. It is obvious to remark how similar the name of this- 
old Etruscan city is to the Cymric Caer, and the pronunciation by the 
Roman would be identical with that of the Cymro. 



RESISTANCE OFFERED BY THE BRITONS. 137 

Perhaps it was in imitation of this Roman principle of 
confederation that the Britons, after the withdrawal of their 
masters, established the sovereignty of the Pcndragon, and 
that the Saxons afterwards had their Brctzualda, by virtue 
of which Wessex had a sort of supremacy over the other 
states. 

Upon these considerations there can be no hesitation in 
concluding that the British population not only was not 
diminished, but was vastly increased during the occupancy 
commenced by CaBsar. 



SECTION III. 

Extent and Power of the British Population during Stibscquent 
Stages of the Roman Occupation. 

We shall apply two tests : first, the elements of power 
implied in the prolonged resistance offered by the natives 
to the completion of the conquest : secondly \ the statistical 
details left by ancient authors touching the distribution of 
the population. 

1 . The prolonged resistance offered by the Britons to the 
Roman conquest. 

The history of the Roman progress and occupation 
divides itself by the nature of the events into three portions : 
1. The commencement made by Cecsar; 2. The period of 
strenuous action from Claudius to Severus ; 3. The time of 
comparative repose from Severus to the abandonment of 
the province. On the first we have already sufficiently 
touched. The details of the second are of great significancy 
to our argument. 



1 38 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



(a.) From Claudius to Severus — a.d. 43 — 211. 

To stand against great Rome for a single day was no 
mean adventure. That colossal power under the emperors 
was the parallel of one of the great military states of 
modern Europe. If the conquest of India took England a 
hundred years to accomplish, it were a sufficient proof 
either of the weakness of England, or of the power of 
India. If we grant that England was strong, it follows that 
India, so long able to resist it, must have been strong also. 
But it took Rome a himdred and thirty years of very deter- 
mined effort, with only occasional intervals of repose — 
intervals quite as useful to the aggressors as to the invaded 
— to subdue the Britons as far as the wall of Severus. This 
it took them without counting the work of Ceesar, and the 
long interval of inactivity which followed his departure. 
The subjugation of Britain was not an approximate con- 
summation until Agricola's labours were completed. The 
tremendous sacrifices it cost Rome to bring about this con- 
summation will be learnt by those who will read the 
eloquent pages of Tacitus, It were idle to say that she was 
not in earnest, and strained not every nerve. Rome never 
did things by halves. Granted that times of corruption 
had set in, that the emperors vied with each other in dis- 
gracing the old Roman character, corrupting the citizens, 
and squandering the public treasury — it is still true that 
the power and resources of the empire during the first 
150 years of supremacy in Britain were enormous, and 
capable of instantly crushing a weak and barbarian state. 
And yet the Britons supplied the Roman legions, the 
chiefest of the Roman generals, several of the Roman 
emperors in person, with more than sufficient work to com- 
plete their conquest in 150 years; and rendered it an 



PROGRESS OF THE BRITONS. 1 39 

irksome and all but impossible task to keep them in 
subjection for 300 years more. 

The patience, energies, and resources, of the Romans 
were confessedly worn out when their occupation was 
brought to a close in A.D. 412. This event was not alto- 
gether occasioned by British obduracy, for under Roman 
tutelage the Britons had at length lost their elasticity ; but 
it was mainly caused by the unparalleled corruptions 
which had crept into the administration, the general 
degeneracy of the Roman people, insurrection and usurpa- 
tion, and the concurrent irruptions of the northern barba- 
rians. 

For eighty or ninety years after Ca3sar, Roman as- 
cendancy in Britain was a thing in name only. Neither 
Augustus (B.C. 31) nor Tiberius (a.d. 14) undertook the 
responsibility of an expedition. Both were content with 
receiving such tribute as could be obtained, leaving the 
greater part permanently unpaid. The Britons had 
leisure to cultivate their lands, and study from a distance 
the laws and government of Rome. Their efforts were 
probably seconded by the Roman officials and mer- 
chants settled among them. Their towns grew in import- 
ance. London became a city. The coinage of money 
improved. 1 Many Britons travelled abroad, especially to 
Rome, the fame of whose magnificence had a peculiar 
fascination to all subject to her sway. But the sense of 
security and growing power which they now began to 
entertain, rendered the people by degrees more tardy in 
the payment of tribute — a badge of subjection which no 
people ever more impatiently bore than the Britons. This 
contumacy, and the pressing need of the imperial treasury, 
at last spurred the Emperor Claudius to action, and in A.D. 

1 YVc have already shown that the Britons coined money previous to 
the Roman invasion. See ante, pp. 65, 66. 



140 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

43 he sent an army to check the rising spirit of the 
islanders. 

Aulus Plautius Silvanus, a man of praetorian rank, and 
soldier of high reputation, was the general chosen, 'and 
four complete legions, or some 25,000 men, with auxilia- 
ries, probably equal in number, were placed at his command. 
As Rome had a footing in the island, landing was effected 
without opposition. Fighting soon commenced, with results 
favourable to the imperial troops, but bearing evidence also 
of skill and stubbornness on the part of the Britons — com- 
manded in one of two battles by Caractacus, and in another 
by his brother Togodumnus. The Trinobantes of Essex, 
whose capital is believed to have been Colchester (Camal- 
odunum), were foremost in this revolt. The Emperor Clau- 
dius himself came over to superintend the campaign. The 
legions, it seems, were from the beginning little pleased 
with the duty of fighting the sturdy islanders, and it was 
found expedient to animate their courage and fortify their 
constancy by the emperor's presence in the camp. The 
Britons, after hard and bloody conflicts, were overcome, 
and Claudius, returning in triumph to Rome, received from 
the Senate the surname Britannicus, in token of his great 
achievement in Britain. 1 Surely, in the opinion of the 
Romans, Claudius had subdued no contemptible foe. 

But Caractacus, who from the first arrival of Plautius held 
the chief command, had not yet surrendered. He collected 
in a short space of time so great an army that for five more 
years he maintained the defensive, fighting between thirty 
and forty battles, and causing the Romans infinite damage 
both of life and supplies. The Roman commander was 
hardly a match for him in strategy, and greatly his 
inferior in energy. 

"While Plautius was thus employed in the mid-parts of 

1 Dion Cass. Hist. lx. 2, s. 



PLAUTIUS — OSTORIUS. 141 

the island, Vespasian was active to the south of the Thames, 
and is said to have fought not less than thirty battles. 
AVas all this activity, with all these legions, in different 
parts of the island at the same time, under different gene- 
rals, merely to chastise a few painted savages ? The lan- 
guage of Tacitus is that " Vespasian here laid the founda- 
tion of his great distinction, that several states were con- 
quered, kings were led into captivity, and the fates beheld 
Vespasian giving an earnest of his future glory." x 

Plautius was succeeded in a.d. 50 by the great general 
Publius Ostorius Scapula, who at once gave presage of 
the distinction he was to win in Britain, by marching 
forthwith, although in the middle of winter, to confront 
the insurgent troops. The Romans had by this time, after 
seven years of fighting, won their way as far as the rivers 
Severn and Avon, 2 on which streams Ostorius established 
powerful military camps, or stations, to restrain incursions 
from the West and North.' The Southern and South- 
Eastern parts of the island, comprehending some sixteen 
of our modern counties, were now subjugated anew, with 
the exception only of the country of the powerful Iccni — 
the people of Norfolk and Suffolk, and parts surrounding. 
These had not yet been attacked, and had not sent in their 
submission. They now rose in great fury against Ostorius; 
but after a most obstinate and heroic resistance, 3 were at 
length totally defeated. 

Ostorius now advanced more boldly towards the North, 
leaving the Southern districts under the guard of strong" 
garrisons. He found that the Britons were spread over 

1 Vita Agric. xiii. 

2 Camden is of opinion that the reading Antona (the river Avon), in 
Tacitus, is an error, and that Aiifona (the Nen), would be the correct 
reading. 

3 Tacitus, Annul, xii. 31, 32. 



142 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the parts now included in Cheshire and Lancashire ; but 
the population here was sparse, and offered no resistance. 
It was otherwise when he went further on to the territory 
of the Brigantes (Yorkshire). These made a determined 
stand, and had to be reduced by hard and costly fighting. 
No sooner was this accomplished than the Silures of 
South Wales, Herefordshire, and Monmouth, the fiercest 
and most persistent enemies of the Romans, were in a 
state of revolt under the leadership of the redoubtable 
Caractacus. But after repeated encounters, wherein neither 
party gained decisive advantage, they at last came to a 
stand and challenged battle on the intrenched eminence, 
it is believed, of Caer-Caradoc, in Shropshire — a few miles 
north of Knighton. 1 It was to be a decisive and sanguinary 
battle. Tacitus tells us that Caractacus harangued his 
brave warriors in these memorable words : " This day 
must decide the fate of Britain. The era of liberty or 
eternal bondage begins from this hour ! Remember your 
brave ancestors who drove the great Csesar himself from 
these shores, and preserved their freedom, their property, 
and the persons and honour of their wives and children." 2 
The Britons were ardent for the fray. The Romans moving 
onwards for the attack, forded a stream and then ap- 
proached a strongly entrenched position which seemed to 
defy further progress. Ostorius was dubious of the result. 
The skill and science displayed in the construction of the 
work surprised him, and the intrepid bearing of the pro- 
digious multitude of warriors for a time seemed to awe 

1 The evidence, on the whole, is, as Camden concluded, in favour of 
the hill still called " Caer-Caradoc : " but Coxwall Knoll is thought by 
some to come nearer to the description of the place given by Tacitus. 
The chief objection lying against Caer-Caradoc is the absence of a river 
in its near neighbourhood. But Tacitus uses very general terms, and 
was not himself an eye-witness of the scene. 

2 Annal. xii. 34. 



CARACTACUS AND THE SILURES. 1 43 

him. The signal for attack, however, after some hesitation 
was given. For a time the tide of battle was clearly in 
favour of the Britons : but when the helmeted legionaries 
pressed on to close combat, the patriots gave way, and fled 
to regain the crest of the hill. The day was lost to the 
Silures. Caractacus escaped, but his wife and daughter 
and brother were taken prisoners. The brave commander 
made his way to his stepmother, Cartismandua, queen of 
the Yorkshire Brigantes, who lent him but a treacherous 
shelter, for she heartlessly betrayed him into the hands of 
the Romans. He was sent in chains to Rome, where his 
presence created the greatest excitement and curiosity, as 
described in a previous section. 

But though their great leader was lost, the spirit of the 
Silures was not yet broken. In a short time they rallied 
their forces, fell upon the Roman camp, and broke it to 
pieces, killing the prefect, eight centurions, with the flower 
of the troops, and routing a foraging party sent to the 
relief of the camp. By energetic and rapid movements, 
they foiled the attempt to erect a line of fortresses across 
their territory, and made prisoners of two whole cohorts of 
auxiliaries. 1 Ostorius, worn by harassment and excessive 
fatigue, found relief in death ; and it was the boast of the 
implacable Silures, that they had compassed his destruc- 
tion, if hot by the sword, at least by the toil and vexation 
they had occasioned him. It is material to observe that it 
was more than twenty years after the death of Ostorius 
before this intrepid people, in the time of Julius Frontinus's 
command, became subject to the power of the Romans. 
We think such facts tell a good deal for the number and 
strength of the British population of these parts. 

It would seem as if the power of the Romans had been 
paralysed by these fierce and sanguinary campaigns. For 
1 Anncil. xii. 38. 



144 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

a season, little or nothing was done to extend or consolidate 
conquest. An army of 40,000 had not done much under 
Csesar. Aulus Plautius, with 50,000, had done still less — 
for he, and his next in command, Vespasian, afterwards 
Emperor, had only succeeded with this enormous force in 
reducing the parts south of the Thames, with a small strip 
of territory to the north of that river ; and even this ac- 
quisition was so insecure, that, immediately on the recall 
of Plautius, it was retaken by the Britons. Ostorius, as 
we have seen, though on the whole a victor, was made 
thoroughly sensible that he was waging war with a race 
difficult to subdue. The number of his army is unknown 
to us ; it was, doubtless, very large — proportioned to his 
eagerness for conquest, to the danger, and the difficulty. 
But it could hardly be said to have accomplished its pre- 
scribed work : it left the Silures active and defiant in the 
held. 

The next governor of Britain was the celebrated general 
Paulinus Suetonius, who continued his command from A.D. 
59 to 61. Suetonius, ardently ambitious, was bent upon 
making his career in Britain brilliant. He had the ill- 
fortune to undertake two enterprises, which, while felt to be 
essential to the establishment of Roman ascendency, raised 
to the highest pitch the indignation and enmity of the 
natives, while they also tarnished his own fame. He 
undertook the cruel task of exterminating the Druids in 
the Isle of Mona (Anglesey), 1 and to suppress the rising 
under Boadicea with a coarseness of violence befitting a 
meaner man. 2 

To show the massiveness of the population, and the 

strength of the Anti-Roman party, where the Roman 

cause might be fairly expected to be strongest, Tacitus 

informs us, that at Londinum (London), which, though it 

1 Tacitus, Annul, xiv. 29, 30. • Ibid. 31, et seq. 



SUETONIUS MEETS BOADICEA. 145 

had no name in Caesar's time, had now grown into a 
"great mart of trade and commerce'' 1 (copia negotiatorum 
et commeatum maxime celebre) ; and that at Verulamium 
(St. Alban's), the insurgent Britons massacred 70,000 
allies of Rome. 1 Camalodunum (Colchester), which had 
long been garrisoned with Roman soldiers, was desolated, 
and the garrison put to the sword. The ninth legion on 
its way to their relief was fallen upon and nearly annihi- 
lated, 2 At calamities so great, prodigies were not absent. 
The statue of Victory (simulacrum Victoriae) at Camalo- 
dunum, says Tacitus, with a tone of sadness, "fell from 
its base, without apparent cause, as if it yielded to the 
enemy." " The sea assumed a blood-red colour." 

Suetonius was now on his way to encounter Boadicea, 
who, at the head of a vast multitude, was ravaging a part 
of the country which acknowledged Roman rule. A dread- 
ful battle was fought, which ended in the defeat and disper- 
sion of the native army. The intrepid Queen, as all know, 
rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, terminated 
her own life by poison. 3 

To obtain this signal victory, Suetonius, be it observed, 
had to make extraordinary exertions. None of the steps he 
took indicate an opinion on his part that he was dealing with 
an impotent foe. If a woman was the leader of the native 
battalions, it only proved the heroic character she possessed, 
and the respect the Britons paid to her sex. Though the 
army under Boadicea was gathered from a portion only of 
the British States, the Romans were evidently alarmed by 
the attitude they presented. So imminent was the peril 
from which the Roman cause was by this victory rescued, 
that the imperial Government, when the crisis was passed, 
began to devise means for conciliating so stubborn and 
untameable an enemy, and sent instructions to the officials 

1 Tacitus, Annul, xiv. 33. ~ Ibid. 32. 3 Ibid. 34—37. 

L 



146 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

to deal more leniently and justly by the Britons. The 
underlings of the Procurator — the tax-gatherers — had been 
the great oppressors, whose extortions the pillaged natives 
had risen in fury to avenge. The Romans perceived that 
destroying the tax-payers would in no wise increase' the 
revenue, and felt also that the Britons were too strong 
to be trodden in the dust after the manner of slaves. 
Seutonius received a reinforcement of some thousands of 
men from Germany to make sure against another insurrec- 
tion, and gradually, under careful management, the excite- 
ment subsided, and peace was restored. 

Suetonius was soon afterwards recalled. A period of 
inactivity ensued; the Romans received the tribute-money, 
and were satisfied. No efforts to extend dominion in the 
island were for a while attempted. 

It was some fifteen years after Seutonius's departure 
when Julius Frontinus, A.D. 78, felt it necessary to com- 
mence measures against the Silures. This people had 
maintained an attitude of opposition to Rome for a period 
of thirty-five years — ever since their territory had been 
first attacked by Claudius ; but now, more than twenty 
years after their great Prince, Caractacus, had been led in 
chains to Rome, when by many their separate existence is 
supposed to have ceased, a great campaign is inaugurated 
against them, and their final suppression is decreed. 
Listen to Tacitus. " The ablest officers were sent to reduce 
the island ; powerful armies were set in motion ;" with the 
Brigantes " various battles were fought, with alternate 
success and great effusion of blood ; the fame of Cerealis," 
who conducted these operations, "grew to so great a 
height that the ablest successor might despair of equalling- 
it," and " yet, under that disadvantage, Julius Frontinus 
undertook the command," and proceeded to the task of 
subduing " the powerful and warlike Silures " (validamque 



THE SILURES STILL IN THE FIELD. 1 47 

et pugnacem Silurum gentem), " winning fame and glor}'- 
"by the success of so great an enterprise." Evidently, 
therefore, these parts of the country were largely peopled, 
and by a race of no mean capacity in war. 

The next governor of Britain (a.d. 78) was C. Julius 
Agricola, whose government and military exploits in this 
country have been better illustrated through the graphic 
writings of his son-in-law Tacitus^. than those of any other 
general. Agricola had to begin his command by repeat- 
ing what Suetonius thought he had finally accomplished — 
the conquest of the Isle of Mona. This completed, he 
immediately gave proof of the wisdom and moderation of 
his nature by trying what effect a kindly treatment and 
education might have. He interested himself in the 
prosperity of the natives, encouraged industry and trade, 
promoted the formation of schools for the young, and 
testified, on witnessing the progress of the British youth 
in learning, that they were possessed of natural genius 
superior to that of the youth of Gaul (et ingenia Britanno- 
rum studiis Gallorum anteferre.) l While doing the work 
of conciliation by tolerance and friendship, however, he 
was assiduous in using every available means of extending 
conquest. In three years after his arrival, he had suc- 
ceeded in pushing his way far north, making himself 
master, probably, of the whole of Lancashire, as yet thinly 
populated, Westmoreland, and Cumberland. About this 
time he created the great rampart, called after his name, 
from the Tyne to the Sohvay, as a barrier against the 
Caledonians. 

In his next campaign, if we judge from Tacitus's nar- 
rative, he occupied himself in securing what he had gained, 
and made no new acquisition of territory. The country 
now called the Lowlands of Scotland, extending from the 
1 Tacitus, Vita Agric. xxi. 

L 2 



348 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Tyne to the Frith of Forth, or from the wall of Agricola to- 
the line along which the wall of Antoninus was subse- 
quently erected, still remained to win. But was this space 
at that early time settled by a fixed population ? If we are 
to judge from the dearly bought experience of Agricola 
and his soldiers, and of others after them, this region, as 
well as the great mountainous district stretching far on to 
the extreme north of Caledonia, even at that time swarmed 
with an energetic and warlike people. 

The next two years, A.D. 81, 82, were therefore devoted 
to the Lowlands or Southern parts of Scotland. Many 
battles were fought. In the second year Agricola boldly 
penetrated into the North-East of Caledonia. Fearing 
iv some general confederacy of the nations beyond the 
Frith of Forth " (Bodotriam), says Tacitus, " he ordered 
his fleet to cross the Forth," and explore the coast. " The 
fleet, now acting for the first time in concert with the land 
forces, proceeded in sight of the army, forming a magnifi- 
cent spectacle, and it frequently happened that in the 
same camp were seen the infantry and cavalry intermixed 
with the marines, all indulging their joy, full of their adven- 
tures, and entertaining each other with their respective 
tales of the mountains and the sea." * 

In the Caledonians, whom Agricola now met in conflict, 
he found a people fierce and unbending as the Silures had 
proved themselves to Ostorius. They not only fought the 
legions in front, but by rapid manoeuvres and stratagems, 
often gained unexpected advantage. They slipped behind 
the army, cutting down the rear, and destroying the forts 
just erected for permanent garrisons. They attacked in 
the night the ninth legion, which was strongly entrenched, 
committing such havoc as nearly to annihilate it. More 
fighting, however, by and by, resulted in their dispersion. 
1 Tacitus, Vita Agric. xxv. 



AGRICOLA AND THE CALEDONIANS. 1 49 

Next year, a.d. 84, occurred the great battle of the 
Grampian Hills, when Agricola completely defeated the 
Caledonians. In this battle the native commanders mar- 
shalled a host of 30,000 warriors. They used war-chariots 
with scythes in their axles as the South Britons did, and 
displayed other signs of acquaintance with the art of war 
which surprised the Romans. It is to be noted that this 
great force was raised exclusively in the districts of North 
Caledonia — for the Trinobantes, the Silures, the Brigantes, 
and other "great nations " of the south and midland parts 
were not now in a state of revolt — and these districts were 
populous enough to yield such an army just 138 years after 
the first invasion of Britain by Caesar, when, if we believe 
the representations of some " historians," the interior of 
Britain contained hardly any inhabitants, and such as were 
found were naked, shrinking savages ! They are so figured 
in some School Histories, with lank limbs, horrid faces, and 
flying plumes, like the veriest cannibals of the jungle. 

The description of the battle of the Grampian Hills is 
one of the finest passages in the writings of Tacitus. It 
shows, as in a dissolving scene, the impetuous attack of 
the patriots, the firmness of the massed Roman legions, 
the frightful slaughter on either side, the confusion and 
distraction of the natives when overpowered, and the heart- 
rending spectacle presented by the field when the terrible 
work had done. 1 There are signs still remaining of the 
campaigns of Agricola, to the North of the Forth, in the 
Roman forts at Coupar Angus, Invergowrie, Keithock, 
and other places. 

Agricola, after extending the Roman possessions far into 
Scotland, and placing them under such good government 
that for more than thirty years the island enjoyed uninter- 
rupted tranquillity and prosperity, was recalled to Rome. 
1 Tacitus, Vila. Acric. xxxv— xxxviii. 



150 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Domitian could not endure the growing popularity and 
success of so good a man ; both Agricola and Roman 
interests, as well as the people of Britain, must suffer, 
rather than allow the name of a general to outshine that of 
an emperor and a tyrant. 

Domitian was assassinated, A.D. 96. Both Nerva and 
Trajan, who next enjoyed the purple, gave the Britons 
quiet. As usual, when the legions were reposing, the 
Britons unloosed their shackles, practically enjoying 
independence. We are told by Appian that the Roman 
government in his time (circ. A.D. 140) did not take the 
oversight of much more than half the island, and that it 
managed this half at a loss ; 1 and we imagine the case 
was pretty much the same during a large portion of the 
occupation. 

In the reign of Hadrian, about A.D. 120, the North. 
Britons once more mustered to arms. The whole of the 
country north of the rampart of Agricola was at once lost to 
Roman rule. Hadrian was wisely content with the 
country south of this line. 

Antoninus Pius, A.D. 138, resolved to reconquer the lost 
territory ; and later still, in 207, Severus made a most costly 
and hazardous campaign to the heart of the Highlands, 
penetrating even far beyond the limits reached by Agricola. 
The perils and hardships were so great that 50,000 men 
are said to have perished in this expedition. But in the 
end Severus hemmed in the Caledonians within the ram- 
part of Agricola, and built a solid wall on the same line as 
a permanent frontier, confessing by the act a consciousness 
that to maintain dominion further north was impossible. 

This wall of Severus was certainly a wonder of that age, 
and may be compared with the greatest public works of 
even modern nations. The stupendousness of the under- 
1 Appiani Alexandr. Roman Hist. pref. v. and lib. iv. 5. 



THE WALL OF SEVERUS. 151 

taking is an index to the power of the people it was intended 
to restrain, and to the value placed on the possessions it 
was intended to shelter. This wall, unlike the rampart of 
Agricola, which was of earth, with castles at certain 
distances, was a huge barrier of solid masonry, 8 feet thick 
and 12 feet high, with lofty battlements on the side facing 
the north. It had 81 castles and 330 turrets, distributed at 
certain intervals along its whole length. Its extreme 
length was 74 miles ! So firm and durable was the con- 
struction that large portions of it remain to this day. 1 

Severus died at York in A.D. 211, while on his way 
to punish the Caledonians for a new display of their 
irrepressible courage. Caracalla, his son, made peace 
with them, and soon after left the island. Then super- 
vened a period of seventy years of quiet, during which 
the lowlands between the wall of Severus and the Friths 
of Clyde and Forth were settled and cultivated. The 
people of the Midland and Southern parts of Britain, also, 
were placed by Caracalla in possession of citizen privileges ; 
the municipal laws of the Empire were introduced, and the 
liberty of the subject was placed under the responsible 

1 In addition to the wall, a ditch, 15 feet deep, was sunk on the 
northern side. On the southern side a military road ran the whole 
length, connecting station with station. The following rough sketch 
will give an idea of the wall and ditch in section. 



r 



I52 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

guardianship of the magistrate. The country south of the 
wall of Severus was very generally, in most parts well, 
populated ; large and flourishing towns grew up, many of 
them Roman municipia and military stations, connected 
together by high military roads, passing from end to end 
of the island. Trade, commerce, and agriculture pros- 
pered. The military stations and the towns had their 
clusters of Roman people — the officials of the government 
and their families, with such merchants and other seekers 
after wealth as the fame of the province had attracted from 
Italy and Gaul. By this time the centres of Roman 
residence in Britain, such as York, Verulam, Caerleon, 
Richborough, would begin to emulate in the sumptuousness 
of their dwellings and the beauty of their gardens and 
terraces, the costly villas of Rome and Baias. But the 
country around, stretching from station to station and from 
sea to sea, while conscious of the presence of a foreign 
governing power, and confessing to the influence of these 
centres of life, was of a primitive complexion, and its popu- 
lation — what from time immemorial it had been — purely 
British. The only change felt was a change from freedom 
and independence, when they called Britain and all that it 
contained their own, into a condition of subjection to a 
foreign and iron yoke. The wars had doubtless swept away 
large numbers of the males of the country, both British 
and Roman, and many of the British youth had been 
drafted off for foreign military service, but this diminution 
would be small, relatively to the whole mass, and would be 
speedily replaced by the growth of a young population. 

(b.) Retention of the Conquest; Troubles, and Preparations for 
Departure, a.d. 211 — 412. 

The events of the next reigns were not of special import- 
ance to our subject. Up to the year 284, when Diocletian 



RETENTION OF THE CONQUEST. 153 

ascended the throne, quietude prevailed. When he divided 
the Empire between himself and Maximian as joint Em- 
perors, or "Augusti," Galerius and Constantius being 
rulers of secondary grade, or " Caesars/' the portion assigned 
to Constantius included the province of Britain. 

Constantius found the island in an unsettled state. 
Carausius, a naval commander, on account of great bravery 
and skill in his profession, had been entrusted with the 
task of punishing the Saxon pirates, who in vast numbers 
began about this time to ravage the coast of Britain. 
Carausius succeeded in his enterprise ; but having thereby 
obtained influence and wealth, he was suspected at Rome 
of harbouring traitorous intentions, and it was resolved 
to get rid of him by violent means. Understanding this, 
he took a bold step. Having acquired power, he resolved 
to use it, and is said to have got himself proclaimed by 
the army in Britain Emperor ! 

Britain had thus become a young Empire, under a 
usurper of daring and resources. Constantius was making 
preparations to assert his right over the island, when 
Carausius was assassinated by a chief officer, Allectus, 
said to be a Briton, who in turn himself, for about three 
years, assumed the title of Emperor, but was defeated and 
slain by an officer of Constantius. Both Allectus and 
Carausius had employed the Frankish and Saxon pirates 
as auxiliaries against the Romans — one proof among 
others that the expedition under Hengist and Horsa was 
not the first from that quarter to set foot in Britain. 

Constantius now came into full power. Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, in his beautiful romance, informs us that he 
married a British lady, the princess Helena, daughter of 
King Cod, who became mother of Constantine the Great. 1 
She it was who became so famous in the history of the 
1 Geoff, of Mon. Brit. Hist.v'w, Rich, of Cirenc. ii. 33. 



154 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Church, as the discoverer of the Holy Cross. 1 Let these 
stories be taken for what they are worth. 

Constantine, who was destined to become first imperial 
patron of Christianity, arbiter of orthodoxy at the Council 
of Nice, and the object of Eusebius's unmeasured lauda- 
tion, was thus, if this story of his parentage be true, and 
we know of no reliable contradiction to it, a half-blood 
Briton. He began his reign over Britain A.D. 306, and 
continued till 337, part only of which time he spent in the 
island. The Britons during these thirty years had a season 
of peace and growth. 

About this time, the " Picts and Scots " began, under 
that name (instead of Caledonii) to make devastating 
incursions from the North. They crossed the wall of 
Severus, committing depredations on life and property far 
into the lowlands. Great hosts of " Scots " came over 
from Ireland, their original home, and managed to settle 
in the southern parts of Scotland? 

From this time forward till the year 412, when the 
Romans quitted Britain, the occupation of the island was 
as irksome to them as to the Britons. The empire was 
agitated by civil wars or by the inroads of the northern 
barbarians, and internal corruption festered in every limb 
of the body politic, threatening speedy dissolution. For 
about a hundred years Britain was left to the care of officials, 
who won from lax supervision their own aggrandisement. 
The extortions of the procurators and their underlings 
became a matter of universal complaint. Indeed, at a 
period much earlier than this, Seneca (the moralist), who 
had lent the Britons money to the extent of ^322,000, to 

1 Eusebius, Vita. Const, iii. 46, 47 ; Zosim. ii. 8 ; Sozom. ii. 1 ; Thcod. 
i. 18. 

2 Nennius, Hist. Brit. 13 ; Rich.of Cirenc. i. 8, 9 ; Bede, Eccles. Hist. 
i. 1, 12, &c. 



TROUBLES. — RECAPITULATION. I 55 

meet exactions which he himself had promoted, by a harsh 
and sudden demand for payment contributed to the revolt 
under Boadicea. 1 Their next troubles arose from the 
inroads of the Scandinavian, Frankish, and Saxon free- 
booters on the one hand, and the Picts and Scots on the 
other — enemies with which the Roman forces in the island 
were hardly equal to cope. The retention of the province 
became a difficulty. The usurper Constantine, under 
Honorius, proclaimed emperor by the troops in Britain, 
took the last remnant of the army away from the island, in 
order to make himself master of Gaul. Rome, by treachery 
in her own camp, had become totally unable to defend 
herself against the hungry enemies who besieged her on 
all sides. She left the Britons, therefore, to enjoy freedom 
if they could, or to be subject to the next powerful foe that 
cared to invade them. 



(c.) Recapitulation. 

From the above sketch Ave see that the struggle with 
Rome continued from the landing of Caesar in B.C. 55, to 
the erection of the wall of Severus, A.D. 209, or for a period 
of 264 years. This period equals the time from the 
accession of Elizabeth to the present year of Queen Victoria. 
The brave Britons, though sadly disjointed, seldom, if 
ever, united as a whole — fought, revolted, and fought 
again, against the most powerful empire of the world, for 
as many years as it has taken the English nation to 
conquer almost all its liberties, and develop almost all its 
resources. To meet the trained legions which Caesar 
brought against them, they supplied numbers, courage,. 

1 Xiphilinus, Epit. Dion Cass. lib. lxii. 1 — 4. This enormous amount — 
a thousand myriads of money (x'Mas /xvpidoas) — is said by the historians 
to have been " lent " the Britons " against their will !" 



156 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and patriotism, but unequal science and inferior armour. 
Still, Caesar's invasion was, as Tacitus, their own historian, 
has declared, 1 a failure. The only wisdom displayed by 
Caligula was associated with the most puerile freak 
recorded in history. After preparing a large army to 
complete the conquest Caesar had commenced, instead of 
proceeding to encounter the Britons, he commanded the 
troops to feign a charge upon the ocean, load themselves 
with shells as plunder, and return to Rome to enjoy the 
glory of a "triumph \" 

It took Aulus Plautius seven years to subdue the country 
south of the Thames. Ostorius met in the Silures as 
stubborn and invincible a foe as Cyrus met in Greece ; and 
when Caractacus was eventually led captive to Rome, 
Claudius treated him with the respect due to an equal in 
rank — mindful " how much the dignity of the vanquished 
enhances the glory of the conqueror." The victory over 
Caractacus " was mentioned in the Senate with the highest 
applause as an event no way inferior to what had been 
witnessed in ancient times, when Publius Scipio brought 
Syphax in chains to Rome, or when Lucius Paulus led 
Perses in captivity." 2 Ostorius died, baffled and dis- 
heartened ; and his successors were for years obliged to 
act on the defensive. Suetonius, stern and resolute, came 
with a military force proportioned to meet a strong and 
capable enemy, and that enemy, although unsuccessful in 
the engagements which followed, proved how willing they 
were to fight, and how prolific their resources in men, by 
leaving, it is said, 80,000 warriors dead on the field. This 

1 Igitur primus omnium Romanorum divus Julius cum exercitu 
Britanniam ingressus, quanquam prospera pugna terruerit incolas ac 
Jittore potitus sit, potest videri ostendisse posteris, non tradidisse. 
Vita Agric. xiii. See also Annates, 34. 

2 Tacitus, Annul, xii. 37, 38. 



RECAPITULATION. I 5 7 

is Tacitus's statement, and not that of a Welsh " bard." 
That it was no easy victory, and gained over no con- 
temptible antagonist, is proved by the words of the 
historian : " The glory won on that day was equal to that 
of the most renowned victories of the Ancient Romans." 1 
The glory of the " victory " could only be measured by the 
strength of the vanquished. To conquer a horde of savages, 
would entitle no imperial army to glory. 

Frontinus and Cerealis occupied seven years in subduing 
the Silures and Brigantes. Agricola consumed eight 
campaigns in carrying the Roman arms through the north- 
western parts between Siluria and Caledonia. Severus, as 
we have seen, had hard work with the Caledonians ; lost in 
one campaign 50,000 men ; and at last confessed both the 
invincibleness of the enemy in its own territory, and the 
resolution of his government to preserve the province of 
Britain, by erecting a colossal wall 74 miles long as a 
barrier against incursion. 

In a word, the conquest of Britain and its retention 
were among the costliest labours of Roman ambition in 
the West. The subjugation of Gaul was easy in com- 
parison — it was done "without much trouble to the 
conquerors " and occupied not a tithe of the time. 2 The 
wars in Egypt, in Parthia, in Pannonia, and the successive 
contests with the great Mithridates, were of much less 
consequence, if expenditure of time, life, and treasure is 
the criterion of importance. 

And what does all this imply ? What does it imply 
especially with respect to the condition and power of that 
" barbarian " people who sustained so long these repeated 
shocks from a giant aggressor ? Let these questions be 
fairly answered. Of the resources and resolution of Rome 

1 Annul, xiv. 37. 
2 Ammian. Marcell. Hist. Rom. xv. 12. 



158 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

we need not speak. These resources were to the fullest 
extent brought to bear ; the resolution is legible in every 
appointment of a general, in every plan of a campaign, in 
every vote of the Senate. Let it be rembered, too, that 
the Britons stood alone in the conflict. We hear of no 
allied hosts from Gaul repaying assistance formerly 
rendered by the Britons. Gaul was now herself a vanquished 
friend. Few or no foreign mercenaries were employed, 
for though the Saxon pirates hung upon the shores, the 
idea of conciliating them by subsidies or employment had 
not yet entered the minds of the Britons. They were only 
employed in counter movements by the Romans themselves, 
as in the case of Carausius. Worse than all, the Britons 
neutralized their aggregate strength by mutual jealousies. 
Mutual distrust, the evil genius of all clannish confederacies, 
whether Celtic or Teutonic, distracted their counsels in 
this time of peril, and compassed their destruction. '■ A 
confederation of two or more States, to repel the common 
danger," says Tacitus, " is seldom known. They fight in 
sections, and the nation is subdued." 1 But broken though 
they were into factions so suicidal, they managed to bring 
into the field forces capable of meeting Roman troops 
numbering thirty, forty, fifty thousand men at a time. The 
importance attached to Britain by the aggressors is in 
keeping with the populousness and resources here implied. 
Picked troops were selected for her conquest ; the most 
celebrated generals were put in command ; the Emperors 
themselves in several instances, as Claudius, Hadrian, 
Severus, Constantine, took up their abode in the island, 
and superintended operations. So great an influence did 
successful commanders in Britain obtain throughout the 
Empire that they not unfrequently aspired to the imperial 

1 Vita Agric. xii. 



THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN BRITAIN. 159 

throne. 1 To conquer the Britons was from the first deemed 
the apex of renown. Hence Caesar's defiant exclamation : 
"To what purpose have I so long possessed the pro-consular 
power, if I am to be enslaved to any of you, or vanquished 
by any of you here in Italy, close to Rome — I, by whom 
you have subdued the Gauls and conquered the Britons r" 2 
" Here within these walls he (Caesar) perished," says Dion 
Cassius, " by conspiracy, who had led an army even into 
Britain in security." 3 " To be trodden under foot by an 
Egyptian woman (said Augustus) would be unworthy of 
us — we who have vanquished the Gauls, and passed over 
to Britain." 4 The quality of the men employed and the 
eclat connected with their operations at head-quarters, are 
measures of the estimate formed by the Romans of the 
quality and power of the people they were in the process of 
subjugating. The number and equipment of their armies 
and the time it took them to accomplish the work of con- 
quest offer testimony to the same effect. It were to prove 
ourselves either incapable of appreciating evidence, or 
capable of ignoring or distorting it, to deny in the face of 
these indubitable facts, that Britain in the time of the 
Romans, was inhabited by a numerous, brave, and power- 
ful race. 

(d) The Conquests of the Christian Church in Roman Britain. 

Amid all the confusion and bloodshed of the period from 
Claudius to Constantine, the Christian Church had not 
been idle or unsuccessful. Tertullian, about the end of the 
second century, boasts that the Gospel had subdued the 

1 On this account the island was called by Porphyry, one fertile in 
usurpers — insula tyrannorum fcrtilis. 

2 Dion. Cass. Hist. Roman, lib. xli. 34. 
3 Ibid. xliv. 49. i Ibid. 1. 24. 



160 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

tribes of Britain, who were yet unconquered by the Romans} 
Origen (circ. a.d. 236), says that the Divine goodness of 
our God and Saviour is equally diffused among the Britons, 
the Africans, &c. 2 British Christians were numerous at 
the time of the Diocletian persecution, and some of them 
became martyrs to the faith, " The Britons, Alban, Aaron, 
and Julius, with a great number of men and women, were 
condemned to a happy death." 3 Wales had the honour of 
contributing her martyrs, for though Alban was a citizen 
of Verulam, and has his name commemorated in the Abbey 
and town of St. Alban' s, it appears that Aaron and Julius 
were citizens of the great Roman station and Colonia, Isca 
Secunda, or Caerleon on Usk, 4 called also " urbs legionum." 
Constantius put an end to this persecution ; and as a 
consequence, " the faithful Christians who had been hiding 
in woods, deserts, and caves, reappeared, rebuilt the 
churches which had been levelled with the ground, 
founded, erected, and finished the temples of the holy 
martyrs, and, as it were, displayed their conquering 

ensigns everywhere This peace continued in 

Britain till the time of the Arian madness." 5 

In a few years Constantine convoked the Council of 
Aries, and there we find three British bishops, one British 
presbyter, and one deacon. 6 There were Britons present, 
it is thought, at the Council of Nice, A.D. 325. Pelagius, 
the man who startled Christendom in ths 4th century with 

1 Adv. Judceos, p. 189, Ed. 1664. " Britannorum inaccessa Romanis. 
loca, Christo vero subdita." 

2 Homil. in Lucam. 

"Richard of Cirenc. ii. 1, 31. See also Bede, Eccles. Hist. 1. 7. 

4 Bede, Eccles. Hist. B. i. 7. " Passi sunt ea tempestate Aaron et 
Julius legionum urbis cives" See Geoffr. Mon. Hist. ix. 12. ; Gildas. 
Hist. 10. 

5 Bede, Eccles. Hist. B. i. 8. 

c See Spelman, torn. i. ; Concil. Gallia:, p. 9. Paris ed. 1629. 



DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBES. l6l 

the boldness of his speculations, was a highly cultivated 
Briton, and a person of undoubted virtue. He erred in a 
too eager attempt to reconcile human responsibility with 
Divine grace, whereby he is judged to have lessened unduly 
the sphere of the Divine agency. But his countrymen — 
then, as now, apt for theological subtleties — in great 
numbers approved his speculations. Bede relates that the 
British bishops sent to Gaul for the assistance of logicians 
to confront the innovator, and adds that those who had 
embraced the false doctrines were confuted and put to 
shame, both by argument and miracles} It appears from 
Matthew Paris, that the conference took place at St. Albans. 2 
It must not be confounded with the battle of Maes- Gar mon, 
near Mold (as if " Garmon " meant Germanus, one of the 
Gallic debaters", or with the preaching of St. David, placed 
by tradition at Llanddewi-Brefi, in South Wales. 

2. Statistical details left by ancient authors, touching 
the distribution of the British population in Roman times. 
■ We have already, in Section 2, briefly inquired into the 
extent of the British population before and at the time cf 
the invasion by Caesar ; and, in the last section, offered 
details of conflicts which imply a greatly augmented popu- 
lation in later times of the Roman supremacy. We now 
propose to furnish certain statistical information respecting 
the position and importance of towns and cities existing- 
in the same period, and to draw such inferences respecting 
population as they may warrant. 

The simple fact, that the Roman armies met such 
opposition as to make the subjugation of the island the 
work of /wo hundred and sixty-four years (B.C. 55 — A.D. 209) 

1 Ecclcs. Hist. b. i. 20. Matt. Par. Floy. Hist. Ann. 44O. 

2 Stillingfleet, Origin. Brit.; Hughes' Horcs Britann. p. 154 ; Usseri, 
Eccles. Brit. cap. xi. 

M 



1 62 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

— that is, from Caesar's first expedition to the conclusion 
of the contests with the Caledonians, under Severus — 
argues, beyond contradiction, the existence of a powerful 
aboriginal race. It is morally certain that since Caesar's 
time the population had greatly increased ; and that the 
different communities, or kingdoms, into which it was 
divided, had g'one on advancing in civilization ; so that, 
when Ptolemy, the geographer, wrote his work in Alexan- 
dria, g'reat towns had sprung into existence, surrounded in 
each case by a widely-spread rural population, fostered not 
merely by the policy, but by the humanity of the Romans, 
as well as by the growing intelligence of the Britons, and 
the divers new quickening influences w T hich wrought upon 
them. 

It is fortunate that we have at hand, written by men in 
no sense biassed, and at a time when the objects described 
were in existence, such statistical accounts as render it 
unnecessary to base our arguments on doubtful facts or 
conjectures. Though we have no census of the people, no 
tables of property assessments, to guide us to an estimate 
of the wealth of the land, still we have factors which are of 
almost equal value, when the object is not to arrive at 
specific enumeration, but at a general estimate of the 
populousness of the island. The following are sources for 
the kind of information we wish here to supply : — Caesar's 
Account of the Tribes of Britain ; Ptolemy of Alexandria's 
Geography ; l The Itinerary of Antoninus;' 2 The Notitia 
Imperii ; 3 and Richard of Cirencester's State of Britain. 

Britain, according to Caesar and Ptolemy, contained a 

1 CI.. Ptolcmcci Geographia. Ed. Lugd. Batav. 1618. Analysis of, in 
Monumenta Hist. Britannica. Pp. x. — xvi. 

- llincrarium Antonini Augusli. Excerpt, in Mon. Hist. Brit. p. xx. et 
seq. 

3 Notitia utriusque Imperii. Excerpt, in Ibid. 



AUTHORITIES. 163 

large accumulation of confederacies of tribes, sometimes 
•called "nations," but which can only be viewed as clans or 
princedoms with separate governments under hereditary- 
chiefs, and speaking dialects of one common speech. 
Ptolemy's account was written in the first part of the second 
-century, and is supposed to relate to the state of the island 
about, if not before, the time of Csesar. These two authors, 
therefore, maybe taken as contemporary in the effect of their 
descriptions. The Itinerary of Antoninus was a work drawn 
up for the public service, of uncertain date, and contains a 
survey of all the roads of the empire, including" the roads 
and towns of Britain within the Roman occupation, as they 
stood when the Roman sovereignty had been established. 
The Nolitia Imperii contains a detailed account of all the 
civil and military establishments of the empire, including 
those of Britain. These establishments were peculiarly 
Roman, but we argue that to whatever extent they prevailed, 
to that extent must have existed also a body of Britons to 
be governed and taxed. 

There is also a work ascribed to Richard of Cirencester, 
which gives a geographical and political account of Britain. 
The genuineness of this work is called in question by some, 
though maintained by many others. Professor Bertram 
professed to have discovered it in a IMS. at Copenhagen in 
1757. Opinion seems now to run in favour of the idea that 
it is nothing more than the composition of a clever and 
unscrupulous scholar of modern times, and that the author 
was none else than Professor Bertram himself. This 
controversy cannot materially affect the use here made of 
it. Even if a work of imagination, its geographical 
descriptions and historical statements may yet be in 
harmony with truth. Whether written at an earlier or a 
later period, many of its positions are borne out by ancient 

M 2 



1 64 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



authors, and few of them are impeached by modern investi- 
gations. 

(a.) The tribes of Britain mentioned by Catsar. 

We have to premise that as Caesar saw but a small 
portion of the island, his information must be expected to 
be only partial, given, though probably not inaccurately,, 
in great part at second hand. 



Tribes. 
The Cantii 
The Trinobantes 
Cenimagni (Iceni of Tacitus ?) 
Segontiaci 
Ancalites 
Bihroci 
Cassii 



Supposed to inhabit : 
Kent. 
Essex. 

Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge. 
Parts of Hants and Berks. 
Parts of Berks and Wilts. 
Part of Berks and adjacent counties. 
Part of Berks (?). 



Csesar had more or less visited all these tribes, and had 
engaged most of them in war. Whether the names he- 
gives be always correct, it is impossible to say. Perhaps 
some of them went by different names, or adopted, or were 
called by, other names afterwards, but it is to be noted 
that Ptolemy covers the regions above enumerated with 
tribes bearing for the most part other names. 



[&.) Tribes of Britain enumerated by Ptolemy, with the disiricts they 
inhabited. 





Tribes. 




Occupying: 


I 


Brigantes 


Bpiyavres 


Durham, Yorkshire, Cumberland, 
Westmoreland, and Lancashire. 


2 


Parisi 


Tlaplaoc. 


The south-east of Yorkshire. 


3 


The Ordovices 


OptouiKes 


North Wales. 


4 


The Cornavii 


Kopvaui'oi 


Cheshire, Salop, Stafford, and 
Worcester. 


5 


The Coritavi 


Kopiravol 


Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, 
Leicester, Rutland, and part 
of Northampton. 



TRIBES OF BRITAIN. 



l6 5 



Tribes 

6 The Catyeuchlani Karveux^avoi 



7 The 


Simeni 


2 i,uevoi 


(Iceni ?) 




8 The 


Trinobantes 


TpivoavTes 


g The 


Demetse 


ArjU.rJTO.1 


■10 The 


Silures 


2 ikvpes 


11 The 


Dobuni 


Ao!3ovvol 


12 The 


Atrebatii 


Arpe^CLTLOL 


13 The 


Cantii 


Kavrioi 


14 The 


Regni 


'Pr/yvot 


15 The 


Belgae 


BeXyat, 


16 The 


Durotriges 


Xovporpiyii 


17 The 


Dumnonii 


AoV/XVOVLOL 



Occupying : 
Bucks, Beds, Herts, Hunts, &c. 
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge. 



Essex. 

South Wales : Carmarthen, Car- 
digan, Pembroke. 
South Wales : Brecknock, Gla- 
morgan, Monmouth, Hereford, 
Radnor. 
Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire. 
Berkshire (?). 

Kent and parts of Surrey, &c. 
Surrey, Sussex, and part of 

Hants. 
Parts of Somerset, Wilts, and 

Hants. 
Dorsetshire. 

Devon, Cornwall, and part of 
Somerset. 
These, according - to Ptolemy, were all the tribes in 
Britain south of the wall of Severus, i.e., in that part of the 
island constituting the Roman province proper, and now 
•denominated England and Wales, as distinguished from 
Scotland. All these tribes were found in these parts in 
Ptolemy's time, or in the first part of the second century, 
and probably much earlier. 

As to the people dwelling* further north, Ptolemy gives 
some eighteen tribes ; but their names and situations need 
not here be quoted. It is sufficient to say that they were 
the Caledonians, rendered for ever celebrated by the 
writings of Tacitus. 



•(c) Tribes mentioned by Richard of Cirencester, which at 
in Ptolemy's account. 
The Segontiaci. 
The Ancalitcs. 
The Bibroci. 
The Cassii. 



not included 



As in Cicsar's enumeration. 



1 66 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

And also : 

The Hedui In Somersetshire. 

The Cimbri In Devonshire. 

The Volantii and Sistuntii In Lancashire. 

The Rhemi In Surrey and Sussex. 

These lists of obsolete names would in themselves be 
scarcely worth recording in these pages, were it not for 
the truth they -imply, beyond what they distinctly express- 
Nothing is said of the number of each separate clan. We 
are given the bare fact of the subsistence, at the time 
referred to, of so many more or less organised communities. 
But this fact of existence is pregnant with meaning. 
Nothing less is involved in it than that the whole surface 
of Britain was settled upon by distinct and independent 
sovereignties. The population, described by Caesar as 
dense — " hominum est infmita multitudo, creberrimaque 
Eedificia" 1 — may then, or subsequently, in remoter districts, 
have been sparse, and there might be wide tracts still 
monopolised by primeval forests and morasses ; but the- 
country was recognised in all its regions as belonging to- 
known bodies of men bearing common names, united 
together by common bonds, claiming possessions in land,, 
and capable of enforcing their rights. 

This is simple fact, and in its barest form is of no small 
import to our argument. There are implications in it of 
greater significance than anything shown on the surface.. 
Of necessity, these communities, before they could for a 
single day subsist as independent States, must be in 
command of a great variety of resources. Each State, 
however small, must have possessed all the attributes of a 
kingdom, with modes of administering laws, levying 
taxes for the public expense, organizing armies for offence^ 

1 Be Bell. Gall. v. 12. 



CONFEDERATION OF TRIBES. 1O7 

and defence. Judged by modern notions of a "kingdom," 
of course these little sovereignties must appear very 
insignificant ; but for the times, and relatively to their 
neighbours, they bore quite a different character. At all 
events each community must have possessed all the 
essential attributes of a " State " — the augmentation or 
diminution of the bulk surrounding those attributes, or 
vitalized by them, would not essentially affect the issue. 

It is probable that a community Of feeling existed among 
all these States arising from neighbourhood or affinity, or 
both. Not that they displayed any excess of virtue in the 
direction of peace amongst themselves. Their normal state 
was probably one of bickering. Even in times of national 
peril, agreeing upon terms of joint action was to them a 
difficulty. As in similar stages of society elsewhere, if not 
eminently as a Celtic attribute, a personal sense of 
importance and strong individuality ruled, and led to the 
disastrous issue marked by Tacitus — they fought separately 
as tribes, " and the nation was subdued." 

Still we have on record that they formed confederacies. 
This was shown on the second invasion by Ceesar, and 
frequently afterwards. The great tribe or nation of the 
Brigantes often sent troops to assist the southern parts in 
checking the advance of the Romans ; and even between the 
clans of the extreme North and the tribes of the South 
there existed a friendly intercourse. Distance, in those 
times, would seriously bar association ; but as intelligence 
of events is prized, so its mysteriously rapid communication 
prevails among less civilized tribes. Horse and foot 
messengers are preternaturally fleet among "barbarians." 
There is reason to believe that the Caledonian clans, not 
only knew of all events happening in the South as the 
Romans gained ground northwards, but that they acted 
from impulse of sympathy, and sent their contingents to 



1 68 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

assist in repelling the foreigners. If we take the speech of 
Galgacus, the general opposed to Agricola at the battle of 
the Grampian Hills, as his own, and not the invention of 
Tacitus, he was well acquainted with the Roman progress 
through South Britain, and looked upon the subjugation of 
that part as a misfortune befalling kindred of his own. "In 
the battles which have been hitherto fought with alternate 
success, our countrymen might well repose some hopes in 
us ; they might consider us as their last resource ; they 
knew us to be the noblest sons of Britain, placed in the 
remotest recesses of the land, in the very sanctuary of 
liberty .... let us dare like men .... the Trinobantes 1 
[the people of Essex] who had only a woman [Boadicea] 
to lead them on, were able to carry lire and sword through 

a whole colony, and shall not we, &c In their own 

ranks we shall find a number of generous warriors ready 
to assist our cause. The Britons know that for our common 
liberties we draw the avenging sword," &c. 2 In these 
passages we hear the tone of national sympathy. Identity 
of race and identity of interest between the mountaineers 
of the North, and the dwellers five or six hundred miles to 
the South, are clearly indicated. 

If, again, we limit our attention to individual tribes, we 
shall see that some of them, even when standing alone, 
were not so ill matched against the armies of Rome. It is 
sufficient to mention the names of the Trinobantes k Silures, 
and Brigantes, to justify this remark. These may be 
allowed to have been the most powerful in the island ; but 
others were found w T hose resources and valour were by no 
means contemptible, as the Cantii, the Iceni, the Catyeuch- 
lani, the Ordovices, the Dimetas. 

1 The correction of the text from " Brigantes " to " Trinobantes " is 
allowed by all to be goud. 

2 Tacitus, Vita Agric. 30 — 32. 



CALEDONII AND SOUTH BRITONS BRETHREN. 169 

Now the fact that there existed south of the wall of 
Severus some twenty different States, or tribes, some of them 
displaying great resources ; and that north of that wall, 
according to Ptolemy's enumeration, there existed some 
seventeen or eighteen other tribes, of whose temper we may 
judge from what we know of the " Caledonii "; and that all 
these were contemporaneous and existing in the early part 
of the Roman occupation, is sufficient for our purpose 
in this place. 

The strenuous opposition offered to the Romans for a 
period of 264 years, and this generally diffused and ener- 
getic population, explain each other. The former without 
the latter were impossible. The latter makes the former 
antecedently probable. 

In this generally diffused population — diffused, yet com- 
pacted into independent sovereignties, we find not only the 
reason for Rome's long labours, but for the still longer 
conflicts of the Anglo-Saxons. Here, moreover, we find 
the most indubitable proof of the preponderance of the 
Celtic element in the compound people of Britain in the 
early centuries of our era. Not only were these tribes 
Celts, but they were powerful and numerous. Not only 
were they numerous when the Romans began their sub- 
jugation, or in the earlier time when Ptolemy wrote, but it 
is fair to conclude that during the Roman occupation they 
became greatly more numerous. Rome not only settled 
over them a regular guardianship, but cultivated them, as 
a garden is cultivated, with a view to the fiscal produce 
they bore. The next part of our statistics will bear upon 
this aspect of the question. 



170 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

(d.) The Roman Settlements, Municipia, Colonics, &c, as evidence of 
Population. 

Great towns in Britain were things of Roman creation. 
The chief towns established were Municipia and Colonic?. 
The former were free towns of the highest order, whose 
inhabitants enjoyed, by imperial authority, all the rights 
and liberties belonging to citizens of Rome itself. 1 The 
Colonics 1 were also privileged towns or settlements, intended 
by their constitution and government to be miniature repre- 
sentations of the parent State, as Gellius calls them — 
" Ex civitate quasi propagatse, populi Romani quasi 
effigies parvse simulacraque." Our information concerning 
the Colonicc in Britain is limited, and, therefore, even were 
it essential to our purpose to determine to which grade of 
Colojtice these towns belonged — for there were several kinds 
of Colonicc as well as Municipia — we are not in a position 
to do so. 

All these great settlements were centres of military 
power, of trade, fiscal administration, and social intercourse, 
In some respects they formed parallels to what we find 
under British rule in India, where the English residents 
are grouped together under the protection of the militar)^ 
and where the army is made subservient in the administra- 
tion of law and the collection of revenue. In these towns 
would appear all the indications of Roman pomp and 
wealth, the refinements of cultivated life, the luxury,, 
dissipation, intrigue, which Rome herself, and the great 
Italian cities displayed. It may be presumed that the 

1 Comp. Rosini, Antiq. Rom. x. c. 23. 

2 Savigny, Ueber das " Jus Italicum" , Zeitschrift, vol. v.; Niebuhr,. 
Rom. Hist. ; Madvig, De Jure et Cond. Coloniarum Pop. Rom.; Zumpt, 
Ueber den Unterschied der Benennungen, " Municipium" Colonia, &c. ; 
also the Articles " Civitas,' n " Latinitas,' n " Colonia" in Smith's Diet, of 
Or. and Rom. Antiq. 



THE ROMAN SETTLEMENTS. I J I 

majority of Roman immigrants and their descendants 
"would be congregated in these chief towns. 

Now, while keeping in mind the purport of these 
settlements — the government and taxing of the native popu- 
lation surrounding them — let us inquire into their number 
and locality. The number of their inhabitants we cannot 
ascertain — for no census has come down to us — but the 
names and position of the towns are fortunately within our 
reach. Our chief authorities are the Kotitia Imperii, 
Ptolemy, and Richard of Cirencester. The Itinerary of 
Antoninus serves to point out the military roads, and the 
stations which divided them. 

" Among the Britons were formerly," says Richard (or, 
as some think, the scholar who chose to wear the mask of 
Richard, and who has given a description of Ancient 
Britain, which at least cannot be invalidated), "ninety-two 
cities, of which thirty-three were more celebrated and con- 
spicuous — two Municipal, Verulamium [near St. Alban's],. 
and Eboracum," [York, the residence of the Roman Em- 
perors when in Britain.] 1 In reply to an objection sup- 
posed to be submitted: "Where are the vestiges of those 
cities and names you commemorate r There are none ;" 
he very pertinently replies : " This question may be 
answered by another. Where are now the Assyrians,. 
Parthians, Sarmatians, Celtiberians r" 2 

Richard proceeds to describe with much minuteness the 
remaining great cities. We give also the Greek names from 

1 The 88th Triad runs thus : "The three principal cities of the Isle 
of Britain : Caer-Llion upon Wysg in Cymru, Caer Llundain in Llocgr, 
and Caer Evrawc in Deivr and Bryneich." Caer-Llion, as the seat of 
King Arthur, obtains from the Triadist pre-eminence even superior to 
the two Municipia, London and York. It would seem that when the 
Triad was written, Verulamium had fallen into obscurity, and London 
had taken its crown. 

2 Anc. State of Brit. i. 7. 



17: 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Ptolemy. Richard often gives two Latin names, adding 
the more recent to the older. 

These nine were Roman Colo nice. 



i Londinium, Augusta, Modern London 



2 Camalodunum 

Gemincz Martice 
.3 Rhutupis 

4 Thermaa, Aqua Solis 

5 Isca, Secunda 1 (Silurum) 

6 Deva, Getica 

7 Glevum, Claudia 

8 Lindum 

*9 Camboricum 



Colchester 



Richborough 

Bath 

Caerleon on Usk 

Chester 

Gloucester 

Lincoln 

Cambridge 



Aovdiviov. 
~K.ap.ov\iduvov. 



Kent 'VovToviriai. 

'Tdara Qep/xa. 



A-qovva. 



Of the above, only two have become insignificant — 3 and 5. 
Ten were under the " Latian Law" : 2 



1 Durnomagus 

2 Caturracton 

3 Coccium 

4 Lugubolia 
.5 Pteroton 

■6 Victoria 
7 Theodosia 
■8 Corinium 
9 Sorbiodunum 
10 Cambodunum 



Castor-on-Neve, or Water 

Newton 3 
Now Catterick, Yorkshire 
Now Ribchester, Lancashire 
Carlisle 
Burghead, Scotland 



l\.a.TOVi)pa.KTOviov. 



Urepwrov GTpa- 
Towelov. 
Dealgrin, Ross, Scotland QviK-opia. 
Dumbarton, Scotland 
Cirencester KopivLov. 

Old Sarum 



Slack, Yorkshire 



'Kap.ovvXocowov. 



1 Strangely enough this town, so celebrated in Roman times, is not 
mentioned by Ptolemy. When he wrote it had not risen into notice. 
The only Silurian city he gives is BovWatov (Builth.) 

2 Cities latio jure donates were inferior in privileges to the Colonics; 
but they had rights corresponding to those granted to the ancient 
inhabitants of Latium. They were allowed their own local laws and 

-were exempt from the jurisdiction of the Roman praetors. See Rosini, 
Antiq. Hom.x.', and A.rt. Latin Has, in Smith's Did. of Gr. and Rom. 
Antiq. 

3 The modern name, Water-N<z\xton hands down, translated, the 
ancient Celtic element, Durnomagus ; Welsh, dwr, water, so common 
in Celtic local names. See Part III. chap. ii. § 3 ; 1 (b). 



ROMAN COLONIC. 



173- 



Twelve were " 


Stipendiariae" ; J 




1 Venta Silurum 


Now Caer G\yent, Mon. 




2 Venta Belgarum 


,, Winchester 


Ovevra.. 


3 Venta Icenorum 


,, Caistor, or Norwich 


Ovevra. 


4 Segontium 


„ Caer Seiont, Carnarvon 




5 Maridunum 


,, Carmarthen 




6 Ragas 


,, Leicester 


Paye. 


7 Cantiopolis 


,, Canterbury 


Aapovcvov. 


8 Dur'mum 


,, Dorchester- 




9 Isca 


„ Exeter 


Iovca. 


10 Eremenium 


,, Ribchester, Northum- 






berland 


Bpeixeiuov. 


11 Vindonum 


Near Andovcr (Egbury Camp, 
probably) 




13 Durobnvss 


Now Rochester 





The above lists, along with the two Municipia, Verulam 
and York, embraced, according to Richard's enumeration, 
the thirty-three " more celebrated and conspicuous" cities 
of the Romans in Britain. " Let no one," he, however, 
adds, " lightly imagine that the Romans had not many 
others besides those above mentioned. I have only com- 
memorated the more celebrated." Of the "ninety-two," he 
leaves fifty -nine unmentioned, as being less noted, and 
probably less populous places. 

Of the size and population of these more "celebrated" 
towns we have no information, and of course must not 
judge of their celebrity from the examples of great towns 
of modern times. The importance of a Roman city would 
often depend on the strength of its fortress, or on the family 
or official dignity of the comes, dux, or proprietor, as the case 



1 The " Stipendiary" citizens were those who were subject to a fixed 
money tribute, called " Stipendium," in contradistinction to the "vecti- 
gales,'' who paid a certain portion, as a tenth or twentieth part of the 
produce of their lands, &c. 

2 Welsh, divr, water. Dorchester is on the river Froom. Names of 
towns having this element in them, almost without exception, are of 
Celtic origin. Of divr, in Rochester, the r alone remains. 



174 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

might be, who formed the centre of its society, and guided 
its affairs. 

The subsidence of many of these once wealthy and splendid 
cities into obscurity, so that in some instances not even a 
trace of them is easily discoverable — such as Sorbiodunum 
(Old Sarum), Segontium (Caer Seiont), and even the great 
Municipium Verulamium, itself — not only shows how 
evanescent are the noblest creations of man, but also how 
varying at different epochs are the conditions under which 
local prosperity is guaranteed. These great cities, sinking 
through sheer inanition, have wasted away and totally 
disappeared, while the population of Britain in the gross 
has immensely advanced. But the conditions of urban 
prosperity in Britain have totally altered since those cities 
grew into note. Great military roads and stations no longer 
nourish nuclei 'of population into growth and wealth. Cities 
are born and nurtured in our times from causes different 
and superior — the demands of the arts of peace, of trade 
and commerce, of health and taste. 

But now let us observe the position and distribution of 
the above principal Roman cities. We think we may find 
here an interesting clue to the distribution, density, and 
wealth of the aboriginal inhabitants. These cities we 
consider as watch-towers to survey the surrounding popu- 
lation, and as granaries to be filled from the produce of 
their toil. If this view of the history and political life of 
the period is correct, then we may expect that wherever 
the Romans were well established — carried on a prosperous 
trade — had to keep in check a numerous subject race — and 
were surrounded with ample means of revenue — there 
colonics, military stations, and other Roman centres of 
population would most abound. Let us now test the theory 
by the facts as borne out by the preceding tables. 

One only of the colonics is found in Britannia Secunda, 




Fage I 



DISTRIBUTION OF ROMAN TOWNS. I 75 

-or Wales. This is Isca, or Caerleon on Usk, the reputed 
seat of Caractacus when leader of the Silures, and in post- 
Roman times, of Arthur and his fabled Knights of the 
Round Table. Three other but inferior cities are located 
in Wales, Maridunum (Carmarthen), Segontium(Caerseiont) 
near Carnarvon in the North, and Venta Silurum (Caerwent, 
or Caergwent), on the eastern limit of Wales towards the 
South — thus relatively to each other occupying a triangular 
position, and well distributed. These are of the inferior 
order of stipendiaricr. In Richard's enumeration, Scotland 
was supplied with three : Theodosia (Dumbart ), Pteroton 
(Burgheadj, and Victoria (Dealgrin) ; and aj these be- 
longed to the third order, or cities of the " Latian Law." 

Now as to the freest and most privileged cities : Shall 
we find these situated where wealth most abounded, where 
population was thickest, and where considerations of public 
safety, as against the incursions of the Frankish and Saxon 
plunderers, would advise protection ? We think we shall. 
Let reference be made to the outline map the other side. 
These cities cluster about the Thames, especially in Kent, 
more than in any other part of the island. Llere we find 
London, Canterbury, Rochester, Richborough, Colchester, 
St. Alban's, and Cambridge. They also abound in the 
tract of country between the Isle of Wight and Gloucester ; 
here are Dorchester, Exeter, Old Sarum, Winchester, the 
town Vindonum, near Andover — of which there remains 
no trace — Bath, Cirencester, Gloucester, Caerwent, and 
Caerleon. These are suited by position not only to fleece 
an abounding population, but also to check the Britons of 
Cornwall, Devon, and Wales. But for the whole of the 
Midland counties in Richard's list, Leicester stands alone ; 
and the town Venta Icenorum, near Norwich, Castor and 
Lincoln are the only other stations he gives for the whole 
of the Eastern counties as being "celebrated " cities. 



I 76 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Thus eighteen of the thirty-three important towns enume- 
rated by our author were south of a line drawn east and 
west from Cambridge to Carmarthen ; while only ten were 
located in the whole remaining territory, from that line to 
another, drawn from Tynemouth to Carlisle, or the line of 
the wall of Severus — a district thrice as large. 

Something is doubtless to be learned from the superior 
celebrity of these thirty-three cities — although we must 
carefully keep in mind, in forming judgment respecting the 
number of the native population, and the Roman residents 
respectively, that these were less than half the actual 
number of towns which Richard says existed. These were 
so distinguished above the rest, as to deserve, in his 
opinion, special mention. The remaining" fifty-nine, whose 
names he omits, were of less importance. Since he gave 
his list from a document drawn up, as he says, by " a 
Roman general," corrected by comparison with "Ptolemy 
and others," we may take its contents as substantially 
reliable ; and shall probably not be far from the truth, if 
we take the greater celebrity of these thirty-three cities, as 
arising from their military and commercial importance. 

But we should fall far short of an adequate idea of the 
state of things in Roman Britain, if we took these as the 
only cities worthy of mention. Richard's may have been 
cities all celebrated at the same hme—the time of the 
particular " Roman general " referred to — and " cele- 
brated," by reason of attributes, mainly, which would strike 
a general as of prime value, such as their strategical 
advantages, their strength as fortresses, their capacity as 
castra or camps, and their situation amid a region affording- 
abundant supplies ; or they may have won celebrity at 
different times in the course of the Roman occupation 
before the document was compiled. But, that other great 
cities existed, which at one time or other of the Roman 



DISTRIBUTION OF ROMAN TOWNS, I 77 

dominion, equalled the chief of these thirty-three of Richard's 
in fame and wealth, cannot for a moment be questioned. We 
have marked the positions of seventy or eighty of these on 
the map by a circlet. The names of all of them are wel* 
known, and the positions they occupy show that no p?,.rt 
of the island was destitute of some great centre of Roman 
life and influence. The following are among the better 
known : — 

1. In Britannia Prima, 1 or South Britain. 

Dubris (Dover). Ad Aquas (Wells). 

Clausentum (Hants). Tamesis (Wallingford). 

Avalonia (Glastonbury). Reguum (Chichester). 

Ischalis dlchester). Calleva Atrebatum 3 (Silchesten -. 

Maldunum (Malmesbury). Uxella (Bridgewater). 

Anderida (Pevensey). Abone (Bitton). 

Bibracte (Wickham). Noviomagus (Holwood Hill). 
Tamara (Tamerton). 

2. In Britannia Sccitnda (Wales). 

Menapia (St. David's). Branogena (Worcester). 

Nidum (Neath). Luentium (Llanddewy). 

Bannium (Old Brecon) Conovium (Conway). 

Gobannium (Abergavenny). Bullaeum (Builth). 

Ad Vigesimum (Ambleston). Mediolanum (? Clawdd Coch). 

1 It hardly needs mentioning that the island was divided by the Romans 
into five parts, exclusive of Caledonia, as shown in map : — 1. BriU 
Prima, in the south ; 2. Britannia Secunda, or Wales ; 3. Flavia Ccssariensis, 
midland ; 4. Maxima Ccesariensis, further north, far as the Tyne ; Valentia, 
thence to Firth of Forth and Clyde. 

3 See a graphic description of the present state of the site of this 
famous Roman city in C. Knight's Old England. "We look round and 
we ask the busy thatchers of the ricks where are the old walls ? for we 
can see nothing but extensive cornfields bounded by a somewhat highei 
bank than ordinary— that bank luxuriant with oak, and ash, and spring- 
ing underwood. . . . It is a tribute to the greatness of the pla 
that to whomsoever we spoke of these walls and the area within the 
walls, they called it the city. Here was a city, of one church and one 
farmhouse," &c. 



i 7 8 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Bovium (Cowbridge). 
Ariconium (Weston). 
Leucarum (Loughor). 
Burrium (Usk). 
.Magnse (Kenchester). 



Varse (near Bodffari). 
Bravinium (Leintwardine). 
Rutunium (Rowton). 
Bovium (Bangor Iscoed). 
Uriconium (Wroxeter). 



3. Flavia Ccesariensis. (Midland and Eastern parts.) 



Trajectus (Aust). 
Durolitum (near Romford). 
Magiovinium (Fenny Stratford). 
Brinavas (Chipping Norton). 
Villa Faustini (Bury St. Edmunc 
Venona? (Claycester). 
Mediolanum (Chesterton). 
Causennse (Ancaster). 
Condate (Congleton). 
Durocina (Dorchester). 
Cassaromagus (Chelmsford). 
yElia Castra (Alcester). 
Tripontium (near Lilbury). 



Cambretonium (Tuddenham). 

Utocetum (Uttoxeter). 

Crococalana (Brough). 

Mancunium (Manchester), 
s). Sulloniacse (Brockley). 

Forum Dianas (Dunstable). 

Lactodorum (Towcester). 

Durolipons (Godmanchester). 

Iciani (Ickboro). 

Derventio (Lit. Chester). 

Branodunum (Brancaster). 

Segelocum (Littleborough). 

Ad Banum (Doncaster). 
:., &c. 



We must cease this kind of enumeration. Suffice it to 
say, that many more cities of note at one time or other 
during the Roman occupation, lie further north in the two 
provinces of Maxima Csesariensis and Valentia. The 
names above given (which are all represented on the map 
by the circular marks) show how thickly strewn were the 
Roman settlements. 

Our argument from all this is brief, and has already been 
stated. These settlements would have no meaning without 
a native population around each to govern and tax. The 
Romans never attempted settling in this island with the 
view of expelling the natives, and colonizing it with their 
own countrymen. Their Colonics here were what Cicero 
calls the old Italian Colonias, " propugnacula imperii," 
defences or bulwarks of the empire, like Cremona or 
Placentia. They were specifically what we have described 



ROMAN POPULATION IN BRITAIN. 179 

them — military and trade settlements, chiefly the former. 
When the soldier could no longer be spared here, the 
body of the Roman population left with him, — a sufficient 
indication of the relation of the one to the other. The 
greater number of chief cities being in the south, near the 
Thames, and the coast of Gaul, indicates a thicker native 
population, and more solid settlement of the invader. 
From one end of the map to the other, whenever we notice 
the Roman city, there is the Roman military road, the favour- 
able military post, the well-watered and productive country 
— and, doubtless, there was found, at the time the spot was 
fixed upon, a surrounding native industrious peasantry, 
an agricultural and mercantile class, whose field labours 
and trade would prove remunerative to the tax-gatherer. 
The very considerable number of these centres of military, 
fiscal, and municipal administrations, must be considered 
as conclusive proof of a generally diffused and numerous 
British population. 

3. The addition to the population through the accession 
of Roman residents. 

However general the answer which must necessarily be 
given, we cannot avoid, in the conduct of this argument, 
asking the question : What was the comparative strength 
of the British and Roman races during the supremacy of 
the latter in the island r If the influx of Romans was so 
large and permanent as to cast into the shade the aborigi- 
nal inhabitants, then the influence of ancient British blood 
in the future compound population must be correspond- 
ingly reduced. It would seem that, relatively, the Romans 
permanently residing in Britain were very few ; and we 
shall by and by have to show that out of these few only a 
fraction remained when ths imperial army was ordered to 
depart. 

x 2 



I So THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

(a.) The first and largest accession of Roman blood was 
in the army. This portion, however, had little chance of 
settlement on the soil. They gradually disappeared 
through casualities of war, natural mortality, or removal 
to foreign stations, and seldom had opportunity of con- 
tracting home attachments in this land. It is also to be 
remembered that the legions, though called " Roman, 5 " 
were, in fact, recruited from all nations subject to Rome,, 
and that those which fought in Britain were in great part 
recruited from Gaul. Their children, therefore, if they 
married British wives, as they were at liberty to do, and in 
all likelihood occasionally did, would only contribute to 
swell the Celtic population. That Germans, as Leo thinks, 1 
were numerous in these legions ; nay, indeed, that men 
from all lands acknowledging Roman sway, were found in 
them, is all but certain, as we shall by and by have 
occasion again to indicate. But the point to be here noted 
is, that the army, however itself compounded, was not an 
appreciable ingredient in the sum total of the inhabitants. 

(b.) The next element of Roman population were the 
numerous civil functionaries, and their families, who, along 
with the military officers, and their families, would form 
the society of every Colonia, and other chief town. 

Rome, and all her provinces, were eaten up by these 
people. Under the governor of the island, as we learn 
from the Notitia Imperii, were placed five assistant 
governors for the five provinces already enumerated. 
These were, two Consulages, or men of consular rank, 
for the two provinces of the North, Valentia and 
Max. Caesariensis, and three Pnvsides, or presidents for 
the three more southern provinces. Then there were other 
three great officials, whose functions were more general ; 

1 Vorlesungen iiber die, Gesch. des Dentschen Volkes tend Reiches, vol. i. 
268. 



ROMAN POPULATION IN BRITAIN. 181 

one called Comes litoris Saxonici (Count of the Saxon 
shore), to watch over the piratical depredations of the 
Saxons on the Southern and South-Eastern coast ; another, 
called Comes Briianniariuii, and a third the Dux Britanni- 
arum> whose duties related to the military operations and 
great strategic posts of the island, 

Under these chiefs, the subordinate functionaries, mili- 
tary, civil, and ecclesiastical, would be counted by thousands. 
Then would come their families and dependents, numbering 
many more thousands, and forming in every Municipium, 
Colonia, and other city, a compact Roman residentiary 
body. 

(e.) The merchants, tradesmen, artists, &c, formed 
another very considerable ingredient in the Roman 
population proper. 

(d.) But we may note that all these people were confined 
to the cities and towns we have been enumerating ; and 
that in these same towns was resident a large population 
purely "British. If the whole population in the Roman 
cities had been Roman, it were a serious item in the whole. 
But probably in these very towns the great majority of 
the inhabitants were of the original race of the country. 
These cities, in most cases, had once been British cities, 
and the men and women who once ruled, as well as those 
who served there, had now been made servants to the new- 
possessors, until such time as, one after another, they 
might again win their rights of citizenship. The great 
body of the servile class were, doubtless, Britons — the 
"hewers of wood and drawers of water" were not brought 
from Italy while so many were to be found among the 
conquered people. The masters were now Romans, the 
servants Britons. But all Britons were not servile. Britons 
would be at liberty to improve their ruined fortunes as 
they listed. As tradesmen, dealers, merchants, mechanics, 



1 82 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

agriculturists, gardeners, &c., they enjoyed freedom of 
action. Submission to the laws was all that was exacted. 
We have given, we think, as ample a view of the Roman 
element in the population as the truth requires ; and yet 
feel warranted in concluding that this element, compared 
with the whole population throughout the country, was 
but a small — an almost inappreciable fraction. 

4. The Roman residents withdrew, en masse, from Britain 
when the military occupation terminated. 

The fact thus stated, if true, is a very surprising one. 
The Romans had been masters in Britain for more than yw/r 
hundred 'years. They had been engaged in all the enterprises 
in which a conquering people delight in a newly-acquired 
land. They had made colossal fortunes ; had been born 
and educated here for eight or ten generations running 
in the same families ; their sires and grandsires for as 
many generations were buried here ; cities, large and 
splendid — temples, classic and colossal — villas and baths, 
rivalling those of Baise and Pompeii — fortresses, roads,, 
bridges, amphitheatres, which would command the admi- 
ration of ages, had been reared by them all over the island ; 
and the images and altars of their gods consecrated a 
thousand spots from South to North ; and 3'et, no sooner 
does the army vanish, than the Roman people quit the 
island, leaving all these splendid and precious memorials 
of their wealth, genius, and piety to be the property of the 
liberated Britons ! It is an astounding fact. 

The Romans must have had hard times of it in Britain, 
and the times must have been growing worse, to lead to 
such an issue. It was so. After much and long pros- 
perity, adversity asserted her right, and bore down upon 
them with unsparing severity. Civil commotions increased. 
Property became insecure. Military adventurers snatched' 



THE ROMANS ABANDONING BRITAIN. 183 

the sceptre of authority from the hand of the ruler. The 
army became divided and fought against itself. Rome 
torn up by faction, weakened by corruption, harassed by 
external foes, became incapable of protecting her distant 
though favourite province. The spirit of the Britons re- 
gained its elasticity, and seized on the heritage of its late 
rulers. The Romans saw no prospect of quiet, and so, 
compounding with necessity, they went to try their fortunes 
elsewhere. 

The Saxon Chronicler informs us that, A. D. 418, "the 
Romans collected all their treasures that were left in 
Britain, and some they hid in the earth so that no one has 
since been able to find them, and some they carried with 
them into Gaul." l 

The Triad relates that " the third invading tribe which 
came to the Isle of Britain, and departed from it, were the 
Cassarians, who through violence continued in this island 
upwards of four hundred years, until they went back into 
the country of Rhufain (Rome)" . . . " and there remained 
of these only women and young children under the age 
of nine years, who became a part of the Cymry." 2 

Scarcely is anything of the kind known elsewhere in 
history ; and yet we can hardly disbelieve the representa- 
tion. We may have a difficulty in accounting for it, but 
the fact cannot be cavilled at. It is clear that, while 
successive Emperors had squandered untold wealth in 
Britain, as if they would compensate for the decay which 



1 Sax. Chron. ann. 418. This was the year of the first great departure ; 
the entire clearance took longer time. On one or two occasions, too, 
they returned to assist the Britons ; hence the year 426 is often given 
for the final evacuation. 



Myv. Archeology of Wales, ii. 58. 



1 84 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

was wasting Rome by adorning this remote limit of the 
Empire with 

" High towers, fair temples, goodly theatres, 
Strong walls, rich porches, princely palaces, 
Large streets, brave houses, sacred sepulchres, 
Sure gates, sweet gardens, stately galleries 
Wrought with fair pillars and fine imageries," 

the Roman people did not find in this country a congenial 
home. The splendour was the creation of the authorities. 
The British population were kept under guard of the 
military. The Roman traders, capitalists, functionaries, 
&c, were here to push their fortunes, like the English now 
in India under protection of force. The machinery was 
lubricated by the legions. When these became demoralised 
and faltered in their allegiance, setting up emperors cf 
their own, until at last they were led to Gaul by their last 
chosen, Constantine, " the tyrant," and the island was left 
exposed, confusion at once ensued, and no time was lost 
when the legitimate Emperor, Honorius, became impotent 
to succour, in deciding* upon quitting the island for ever. 
The guilty feeling of usurpers, no longer capable of holding 
their ground, possessed the whole body. Such only as 
were on intimate terms with the Britons, with }*oung 
children and women, from whom nothing was to be feared, 
continued to live in Britain. However distinct the Roman 
people had kept themselves, in the mass, from the natives, 
it is impossible but that in 400 years a home feeling would 
grow up, alliances take place, friendships be formed, and 
interests established which would cause many a Roman 
to feel among the Britons and be treated by them as one 
of themselves. But these would be few compared with the 
whole. The truth remains that the Roman race quitted 
t he land, and left the ancient possessors, who were spread, 



ADMIXTURE OF ROMANS AND BRITONS. 1 85 

as we have shown, over its old surface, in quiet enjoyment 
of all it contained. 

At the departure of the Romans, therefore, the Ancient 
Britons were a numerous, and comparatively unmixed 
people. Our conclusion on the former is categorical, and 
certain ; on the latter, it is subject to qualification, as we 
now proceed to explain. 



SECTION IV. 
Admixture of Race during the Roman Occupation. 

The Roman law contained no prohibition against inter- 
marriage. If any impediment arose, it would be from the 
repugnance of the natives. But in all nations there are 
persons little governed by national sentiment, ready to 
adapt themselves to circumstances, and preferring personal 
intercourse and advantage to abstract ideas. Residence 
in the same neighbourhood through life would make friends 
of Roman and British families. In 400 years antipathy 
would stand little chance of retaining its vigour among the 
peasantry, and persons of equal rank in towns. Neighbourly 
feeling, cherished by deeds of common politeness, and of 
kindness in seasons of need, would overlay opposite senti- 
ments, and friendships and matrimonial alliances would 
occur. Whether it be a fact or not that Constantius him- 
self set the exampleby marrying a British princess (Helena), 
the circumstance that the statement was made in early 
times, and credited, shows that the event was not im- 
probable — that, in other words, the relations of conquerors 
and conquered were not such that persons of the highest 
rank might not intermarry with the natives. 

The soldiery who came without wives would, in many 
cases, marry native women. Where the soldiers were 



1 86 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Celts from Gaul, or elsewhere, as already intimated, the 
junction would produce no intermixture of race ; but we 
must remember that the Roman army was a conglomeration 
of fragments from almost every nation in the then known 
world. The cases of inter-marriage between soldiers and 
British women might, therefore, include curious examples. 
We need only consult the Notitia Imperii, and the 
inscriptions discovered on tombs, altars, &c, to see that 
the legions were composed of Spaniards, Thracians, 
Dacians, Cilicians, Sarmatians, Dalmatians, Tungrians, 
Germans, Moors, and even Indians. Did some of all these 
marry British wives ? When we remember how in suc- 
ceeding generations the characteristics of ancestry reappear, 
as evidenced by the natural history of man, how can we 
wonder at the variety of cranial development, physiognomy, 
complexion, temperament, displayed in the streets of every 
village and town of England and Wales ! 

The "women and young children" are allowed by the 
Triad to have become "a part of the Cymry." They 
merged into the mass, adopted the speech and manners of 
the Britons, and were soon in their descendants not dis- 
tinguishable from them. 

Let it be kept in mind that long before the departure of 
the Romans, Christianity had been embraced by a large 
proportion of both peoples. Constantine the Great had 
become a zealous patron of the Church, and the Britons in 
large numbers received the faith. The wall of separation 
as between Christian and "heathen" having thus been 
broken down, and a new ground of sympathy and con- 
fidence, more sacred than any other, found, intermarriage 
would more freely take place. 

Rome profited from such alliances, and gave them every 
encouragement. Amity and goodwill sprang from them. 
Every family tie was a tie between the people and their 



LATIN CORRUPTIONS OF CYMRIC. 1S7 

masters, made oppression less galling, and conquest more 
secure. 

The etymology of proper names, though a dangerous 
guide, is not altogether to be discredited. In times long 
subsequent to the evacuation of Britain there were 
numerous personal designations current in the island which 
indicated Roman origin. 

The corruption of the British language by the intro- 
duction of Latin vocables, made greater progress both in 
Roman and post-Roman times than is usually acknow- 
ledged. In the estimation of some of our "Welsh literati " 
it were a proof of traitorous intentions towards the Cymracg 
to say that its vocabulary is intermixed with Roman words ; 
but the fact is beyond question, as our chapter on Philology, 
and Appendix A., will show. At the same time it cannot be 
too frequently insisted upon, that intermixture of languages 
is not a certain index to a proportion of race intermixture. 
In the chapter referred to, we have endeavoured to dis- 
tinguish between the two, and to show how the former is 
an evidence of the latter as fact, and in what respect it may 
be considered evidence as to its measure. 

The introduction of Latin into the Cymraeg might be 
the fruit of respect for the speech of the ruling class ; and 
might still more arise from the respect entertained by the 
better instructed — the clergy — for the Latin, as the deposi- 
tory of ancient learning. That the Britons had to some 
extent cultivated the Latin is certain. The indications of 
history are few, but we have shown that Agricola used 
special efforts to induce them so to do. The works of 
Taliesin (say 6th cent.) give evidence of his acquaintance 
with the classic writers, both of Greece and of Rome, and 
Cymricised Latin words are often met with in his verses. 
Also in Aneurin's Gododin (6th cent.) vv. 231,239, we meet 
with many corruptions, ex. gr. fossawt, for fosse, a ditch 



1 88- THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

(Lat. fossa), Calan Jonawr, the first of January, v. 268, (Lat. 
kalendas) ; Llywarch Hen (6th cent.) has gwydr (Lat. 
vitrum), &c. Latin words became further naturalized in 
the speech of the Cymry in the middle ages ; thus, at the 
very opening of the laws of Hywel Dda 1 we meet with the 
word emenda'dsanty "improved" (Lat. emendo) ; and in the 
elegy of Meilyr on Gruffydd ap Cynan (12th cent.) we meet 
with the epithet, "rex radau," King of gifts or. graces. 
How the terminology and technical phrases of superior 
languages/or the languages of superior nations, are adopted 
as in some sort signs of presumable culture by the. unedu- 
cated, we need not say : the Welsh of the present day afford 
ample and humiliating illustrations. 

We have few means of knowing how far the culture of 
Latin proceeded among the Britons during the stay of the 
Romans. Mr. Wright is assuredly wrong in the opinion 
that Latin had become the fixed and only language of 
Britain, and was the speech in general use on the arrival 
•of the Saxons. Not only is there no evidence that the 
Romans, here or elsewhere, made a point of imposing their 
language ; but the traditions, early literature, and subse- 
quent vigour of the Cymric tongue, conclusively prove that 
the language had remained as fixed as the people. 

We have said^, that Agricola set on foot measures for 
teaching Latin to the Britons. But how did he proceed ? 
He wisely began with the sons of the chief people — 
" principium filios," expecting that the example of the high 
would be followed by those below. All this would tend to 
prove that up to Agricola' s time, when Rome had already 
been master some hundred and thirty years, the Britons 
had made no acquaintance with the Latin tongue. As yet 
the children of even princes and the nobility had not been 

1 See Wotton's Leges Wallice. 



AMALGAMATION OF ROMANS AND BRITONS. 1S9 

taught it. But soon the administration of the laws came 
to be in Latin. Latin was the language of official life. In 
two or three hundred years, it would infallibly make pro- 
gress, especially among the instructed classes, and would 
become the chief, if not only, language spoken in the 
Municifiia, Colonice, and Roman towns generally ; and 
would thus become a powerful instrument in the fusion of 
the two peoples. 

The languages would doubtless, as languages of daily 
intercourse, mutually borrow. The process for both would 
be facilitated by the numerous Celtic vocables already 
existing in the classic Latin, and belonging to its primitive 
and most venerated materials — memorials of some ancient 
common origin between it and the Cymraeg — and by the 
similarity of articulation of the two tongues. As an 
example of a common inheritance, the Welsh word taran, 
thunder, may be cited. Ennius, in earlier Latin, says^ 
" Jupiter tarans," while Virgil has, " Jupiter tonans." 

These philological indications, added to other reasons 
already mentioned, ;or left to be understood, justify the 
presumption that amalgamation took place between 
Romans and Britons, but how far this fusion proceeded 
we cannot of course determine. Taking what has already 
been shown — the relative smallness of the Roman resi- 
dentiary population — as our guide, it seems reasonable to 
conclude, even after making the amplest allowances, thai 
its progress was not great. When the Romans withdrew, 
the population of Britain was substantially Celtic, as they 
found it. Neither the occasional immigrants from North 
Germany, nor the influx from Italy during the imperial 
rule, produced any such change in the inhabitants as to 
render it inappropriate still to call them the Ancient 
Britons. 



I go THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



SECTION V. 

The influence of the Roman Conquest upon the Celtic character 
of Western Britain. 

That the eastern side of our island retains hardly any 
traces of the Celtic aborigines, and that the western has 
•become their favourite, though not their only home, cannot 
admit of debate. Had the Romans any hand in deter- 
mining this state of things ? Or were the determining 
•causes at work in times anterior to the Roman Conquest, 
and have they continued so in later times ? 

The great line of march for the Roman troops was from 
South to North through Leicester, York, and Newcastle. 
On this line the great military stations are found. To the 
east of this line, from time immemorial, the piratical rovers 
of the German Sea would have some influence, and here 
and there effect settlements. Here probably settled the 
" Coritani." We read of no great Celtic power at any time 
inhabiting these regions ; under the behests of nature, they 
had been left in a state of comparative wildness, abounding 
in forests, moorlands, and swamps. Up to comparatively 
recent times, indeed, the " Fen Country " was but a thinly 
peopled, unwholesome, sadly uncultivated tract. The Celt 
had no love for it. But if we look to the Western side, 
along the entire length of the island, the Cymry axe found 
predominant — in Cornwall, in Wales, in Cumberland, and 
Strathclyde far into Scotland. 

Now it appears by no means certain that the Romans 
had any hand in causing this distribution of the Cymry. 
The unhistoric representation about the Romans, and after 
them the Saxons, "driving the Ancient Britons into the 
mountains of Wales," is utterly groundless. A preference 



PREFERENCE FOR THE WESTERN SIDE. igi 

for the West would arise from the nature of things, unless 
the aborigines were a people without either imagination 
or reason. The cold morasses, stagnant lakes, and tangled 
forests of what are now called Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, 
and Lincolnshire, were not likely to be more inviting' than 
the crystal streams, sheltered vales, and towering hills of 
the West. Once discovered, the western side of Britain, in 
the most primitive times, and to the most untutored tribes, 
would be more covetable than the eastern. 

Previous to Roman times also, as afterwards, the German 
Sea marauders were the plague of the Britons. To avoid 
their presence, and to keep their flocks and property out 
of their reach, the inhabitants would naturally incline 
to the interior, except where their strength was adequate 
to check their unwelcome visitors. The power of the 
Iceni and Trinobante's in Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, &c, was 
not sufficient to prevent them from committing depreda- 
tions, and even forming settlements, on their shores ; nor 
was the power of the Romans altogether sufficient for the 
purpose. It is, therefore, conceivable that their visits 
would cause the aborigines in their earlier stages of 
possession to feel no strong attachment to those parts even 
if the landscape had been pleasing^ and the soil fertile. 

The condition of things when the Romans began their 
conquests, was therefore something like the following: The 
southern and western parts were well peopled. As far as 
the mountains of Caledonia, the different tribes of Britons, 
all speaking the same tongue, were found in more or less 
teeming multitudes. In the central parts of the island 
also they abounded in almost equal numbers, as evidenced 
by the vast forces they brought into the field to stem the 
progress of the Romans. But in proportion as Rome 
established her power, in that proportion did a select i~w, 
the more brave and defiant, seeing resistance was useless, 



192 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

quit their native locality, and seek shelter among the 
unconquered tribes of the West, in Wales, Devon, Cum- 
berland, and the region still further north. Thus an intense 
hereditary spirit of nationality was concentrated in Wales 
which never ceased to fulminate its most terrible thunder- 
bolts against all aggressors on the sacred soil of Britain, 
and has not even allowed its powerful vocabulary to fall 
into complete desuetude even in these latter days. 
Although all real reason for its use has long ago vanished, 
the phantoms of the past appear, now and then, sufficiently 
real to call forth a malediction. 

It is just possible that to pirate freebooters of North 
Germany allusion is made in the Welsh Triads, where 
amongst the " three invading tribes which came into 
the Isle of Britain, and never departed from it," are 
mentioned, " the Coranians, who came from the country 
of Pwyl," and settled about the river Humber and the. 
shores of the German Ocean. 1 This may refer to a period 
anterior to the Hengist incursion, or subsequent to it, and 
the intruders may have been of Germanic or of mixed 
origin. We cannot rely upon such general statements, 
made without date or definite order of succession ; but they 
may legitimately be received as suggestive, and corrobora- 
tory of other proofs, in building up a structure of argument. 
We, therefore, accept this Triad as indicating one of the 
causes which in early times induced a brave remnant of 
the Cymry to move by degrees towards the opposite 
western coast — probably in that particular case, more 
towards Lancashire and Cumberland than towards Wales. 

There was a poetic fitness in this migration of the 
ancient possessors into the more hoary regions (if geology 
will pardon a figure) of the island. And the step might 

1 My v. Arch, of Wales, vol. ii, 59. 



POETIC FITNESS. 1 93 

well have been suggested by a prophetic foresight also. 
The -western side is the region of primary formations, 
which not only determine the picturesqueness of the surface, 
but the underground wealth. Nearly all the mineral 
treasures of Britain are carefully laid up on the Western 
side — the region whither their good genius conveyed so 
many of the staunchest of the Ancient Britons. But war, 
oppression, and sentiment prevented the Cymry from 
finding the concealed riches. Is it, therefore, that the 
slow and searching Englishman — the compound of Saxon 
and Celt — must follow them to the West, to aid in the 
discovery and converting to use of treasures which so long 
had lain under their feet ? The Celt, though not wanting 
in constructive power, has not for many ages in the British 
Isles turned it to the highest account. Poetic, airy and 
sentimental, his aptitude is small for burrowing the earth. 
He is naturally at home when ranging the breezy hills, or 
the fairy intellectual dream-land. But when he with his 
quick perception and prompt action is joined to the 
profound, persistent Teuton, then comes forth the inventive 
discoverer of worlds above and worlds beneath — the man 
who can extract gold from the quartz rock, and dig coal 
and iron from the bowels of the hills. 

We do not think that Roman influences contributed in 
very large degree to the movement of the aboriginal race 
westwards. They led to the overlaying of the features of 
Celtic nationality in the South, and all other parts except 
the West and extreme North ; but this was done by dis- 
placement, not of the race, but of the language, and other 
elements of national character. That the race had not been 
displaced, but remained in vast numbers on the soil, was 
demonstrated on the departure of the Romans. The British 
kingdom of Lloegria was immediately set up, with London 
as its capital. The Saxons had to fight the old Britons 

o 



1 94 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

twenty years for possession of Kent ; and afterwards for 
every inch they gained from Kent to the Highlands. 

Nothing can be more conclusive as proof that the Romans 
had never dislodged the Britons from the soil of England 
than the universal movement alluded to, for the recon- 
struction of the native States. Once the land was free 
from the repressive power of strangers, the original race 
resumed its old position ; and we need no better evidence 
that the government of Rome had never obliterated the 
distinctions of rank and family recognised among the 
Britons, than the fact that when this resumption of power 
w r as set on foot, the genealogies of the princes were known, 
and the rightful claimants to power identified. A dispute 
arose respecting right of precedence to the supreme office 
of Pendragon (an office similar to the Saxon "Bretwalda"), 
but the princely families and their order of descent were 
all known, and, doubtless, the ancient laws and usages 
were in safe keeping against the moment of political resur- 
rection, when the barriers of oppression were removed from 
the national tomb. 

What had been the precise condition of the princely and 
noble families of the Britons during this time of suppressed 
political existence, it is now impossible to relate. How 
far did they consent to accept military employment abroad : 
how far were they domiciled and pensioned from the public 
Treasury ; were their sons and daughters married into 
wealthy Roman families ; were they encouraged to tread 
the path to a convenient oblivion through extravagance, 
dissipation, and shame ; or did tyranny crush them all, 
wherever it could, with impartial and implacable vengeance ? 
The last supposition is totally inadmissible, being so 
obviously in conflict with the known temper and custom, as 
well as interest of the Roman people. Some consideration 
was extended to rank and station, and the gentle and help- 



FAMILY PEDIGREES. I 95 

less, overtaken by misfortune through no fault of their own, 
but through the ambition of imperial Rome, were dealt 
with as humanely as the necessary assertion of power would 
permit. Moreover, the hope of redemption ever sustained 
the British heart, and in the later ages, as signs increased 
of the coming downfall of the Empire, that hope grew 
brighter and more buoyant. A Census, though perhaps 
unwritten, was carefully kept of the survivors of dis- 
tinguished families — for the Celts through all times have 
been warmly loyal to their chiefs — and when the moment 
came round, the names, with their genealogies were pro- 
claimed. 



SECTION VI. 

The Nitmerical and Material Strength of the Britons at the 
Anglo-Saxon Invasion. 

We have been anxious to present as faithful a picture as 
possible of the Ancient Britons, their number and dis- 
tribution throughout the island, under the Romans ; for 
here lies the basis of the whole argument. This being 
done, and the interval between the liberation of the Britons 
from Roman rule and exposure to Anglo-Saxon attack being 
so short, part of the proof implied in the wording of this 
section is already furnished. If the Britons were spread over 
the island, and in powerful bodies, under the Romans, and 
at the time of cession of Roman rule, nothing short of a 
miracle could prevent their being so when the incursions 
of the Picts, Scots, and North Germans, took place. Such 
as the Romans left them, such the Anglo-Saxons found 
them. This is true, notwithstanding - the emigrations to 
Brittany, and the hosts which are said to have followed the 
fortunes of Maximus and Constantino the usurper to Gaul. 

o 2 



196 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

But we must, in the briefest form, give a few details re- 
specting this critical period in the condition of the Ancient 
Britons. 

i. The effect of the Roman dominion on the spirit and 
capacity of the nation. 

It has been shown that it was in harmony with the policy 
x)f the Romans to encourage the increase and prosperity 
of subject races. But it was neither their policy nor their 
practice to develop the British mind, to encourage habits 
of self-reliance, or the exercise of self-government. They 
consistently promoted such development as tended to the 
increase of revenue, without impeding the action of a rigid 
military rule. The increase of population, the improve- 
ment of agriculture, commerce, mining, were encouraged, 
since men for the army and taxes for the treasury were 
thereby furnished. 

But, side by side with this tilling, planting, and irrigating, 
there was at work a method of exhaustion. The British 
yoLiths were drafted into the legions, and many sent on 
foreign service, it being the custom of the Romans to gain 
new provinces by the aid of troops drawn from the old — 
a custom, by the way, superior in its wisdom to that 
pursued by the British in India until the late disastrous 
mutiny. 

Offices of trust and emolument, calling into play talent 
and acquirement, were, as a matter of course, bestowed on 
Roman candidates. A chief qualification for these posts 
was indubitable loyalty. In the army, Britons might be 
promoted, but with discretion, and exclusion from chief 
command. When a common soldier lik Constantine " the 
tyrant," could rise to be imfierator, nothing could prevent, 
here and there, a Briton from obtaining subordinate com- 
mand. Allectus, who rose against and destroyed Carausius, 



EFFECTS OF ROMAN DOMINION. I Q7 

and assumed the imperial title he had usurped, is said to 
have been a Briton. But, as a rule, with numerous excep- 
tions in favour of the unquestionably loyal, the natives 
were not promoted in the army. 

"When, therefore, the Roman Government was withdrawn, 
the Britons were found in a condition of prostration little 
adapted for the management of affairs. Bede, with a tone 
of deeper colouring than the truth demanded, tells us that 
" the South of Britain," destitute of armed soldiers, of 
martial stores, of all its active youth, which had been led 
away never to return, was wholly exposed to rapine, as 
being totally ignorant of the use of weapons. * The 
untrustworthy Gildas has already painted the same picture, 
but follows his bent by dashing in darker lines. 2 Things 
were bad enough, though not quite so bad as this. Among 
the chief causes of the weakness and bewilderment of the 
Britons may be counted the following - : — 

(i.) The moral impotence incident to dependence on the 
guidance and authority of others through 460 years. 

(2.) Exhaustion of property by confiscation and taxation. 

(3.) The necessity of creating a new arm}-, settling 
property in land, establishing a fiscal system, Sec. 

(4.) Divided counsels — the marked misfortune of the 
Celtic race. 

2. The recovery of the ancient spirit and rule. 

Rome in recalling her army (if, in the confusion which 
accompanied the usurpation by Constantino, and the re- 
moval of all the troops under his command to Gaul, such 
an act as " recalling her army " can be ascribed 
to Rome; left in Britain certain officials with nominal 

1 Ecclcs. Hist. i. 12. Sec also Sax. Cliron. aim. .| | ;. 
- De Excid. Brit. 14, 15. It is well known that Beck's account is only 
-a copy, with alterations, of that of Gildas. 



198 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

authority and bearing nominal command, but of therr 
functions very little can now be known. Whatever 
they may have been, the natives, in the absence of the 
army, were not likely long to respect them. The chiefs 
of the different tribes overhauled their pedigrees and began 
to advance their claims to rule the country. The record 
of descent was always an important care with the Britons. 
Their social and political organization was based upon 
their elaborate genealogies. Never was there a people 
more aristocratic and oligarchial. Referring to their 
descendants of the thirteenth century, Giraldus says : "The 
Welsh esteem noble birth and generous descent above 
all things, and are therefore more desirous of marriage 
alliance with high-born than rich families. Even the com- 
mon people retain their genealogy, and are not only able at 
once to recount their grandfathers and great grandfathers, 
but even refer back to the sixth or seventh generation, or 
even beyond." 1 Every district belonged to a particular 
family connection or clan, which had grown up around 
some chieftain (called Pen-teulu — caput familise), 2 and no 
person not by birth related within the ninth degree to such 
pen-teuhi could possess land or hold rank in that district. 
His pedigree, therefore, was the Briton's title to dignity and 
property. The princes and great men — precisely after the 
analogy of all early Oriental nations — kept their bards or 
genealogists as a necessary family institution, filling the 
functions of general annalists, musicians, and moralists. 

The Isle of Britain was soon astir with the work of 
repairing the ancient desolations. Not only tribe govern- 
ments or kingdoms, North, South, East, and West were 
established, but an effort was also made, amid much dis- 
traction and division of counsels, to cement a bond of union 

1 Cambria Descript. i. 17. 2 Lazes of Hywel Dda, iii. 1. 



TIMES OF PERPLEXITY. 1 99 

between the different kingdoms by a confederacy and the 
appointment of a supreme prince called Pendragon. This 
may have been an arrangement known among the Britons 
in ante-Roman times. Something of the kind existed 
among the Gauls. Or it may have been in imitation of 
the practice of the Romans, who looked upon the Empire, 
not as a unity so much as an aggregation of unities, with 
Rome as supreme and directing centre. The seat of the 
Pendragon was established in London — the chief city, by 
this time, of the Lloegrian Britons. 

It was in this very effort at a wise arrangement for 
defence, that the Britons managed to discover a bone of 
contention and occasion of their own defeat. Every prince 
of course would like to be Pendragon. The Lloegrians 
were the tribe whose capital had been fixed upon, at least 
by themselves, as the seat of the Pendragon. But the 
Cymry claimed to be the first colonists of Britain — the 
hosts and patrons of all subsequently arrived tribes — and 
nothing appeared to them so just and natural as that their 
ruling prince should be Pendragon. The enemy was 
already knocking at the gate, but the wranglers could 
hear nothing but the din of their own contentions. Reason 
reeled, and the appeal was made to arms. The people, 
who were already too feeble to repel an invader, increased 
their impotency by shedding each other's blood. In this 
war of rival claimants, Vortigcm, the Lloegrian, was 
loudest, most daring, and successful in demanding - the 
Pendragonship. 

It must be confessed that the endeavour to establish a 
native government after the ideal conceived was a failure. 
All that can be scored to the credit of the Britons during 
this painful interval is a spirit of thorough-going, heroic 
patriotism. The sorts of government that were established 
under Vortigern, Ambrosius, Uthyr Pendragon (said to be 



2 00 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

father of Arthur), granting for a moment that the accounts 
we have received are worthy of credit, were not adequate 
to self-protection, and were hardly anything better than 
fortuitous experiments of rivals for supremacy. It is im- 
possible to determine at this distance of time how far 
Roman intrigue was concerned in frustrating a restored 
British monarchy ; and how far credit is due to the repre- 
sentations of Geoffrey respecting Ambrosius as claimant 
with Roman proclivities against his brother Vortigern as 
the national champion. There may be truth underlying 
the representation. All we certainly know is that the 
national spirit was now thoroughly roused. Not in Wales, 
but all over England, the Britons were politically active. 
The old chroniclers shadow forth to us in that dim age 
weighty transactions, powerful and violent rivalries, 
audacious courage. But the scene is one of power mingled 
with weakness — private passion and intrigue warring 
against reason and the common weal — usurpation, insu- 
bordination, interminable disorder. No picture more 
affecting could well be offered to the study of the historian 
than a noble, heroic people, long-oppressed, but just let 
free, holding in a trembling hand the cup of their destiny, 
and in the mad eagerness after a drop of its contents, 
clashing it all to the ground ! 

There now occurred a strange coincidence in the fortunes 
of Rome, the mistress of the world, and of Britain, her 
late province — both became the prey of " Northern bar- 
barians." 

3. The Britons, at the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, 
widespread and numerous. 

It has been already said, that such as the Romans left 
the Britons, such the Anglo-Saxons found them. It is 
beyond dispute that their number had vastly increased, in 



RESISTANCE TO THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 20 1 

spite of all diminishing influences, during the Roman 
occupation, and that, in all conceivable respects, the 
practice of self-government excepted, they had become a 
greatly superior people to what they were at the com- 
mencement. They were better educated, better trained to 
arms, better practised in all the arts of life : in a word, 
they had received all the advantages of the Roman 
civilization, and were, therefore, in point of general culture, 
pretty much on a par with the Romans themselves. 

We may take it as proof of the teeming numbers of the 
Britons rather than of their desire to abandon their native 
country that so many scores of thousands of them are said 
to have emigrated about this time to Armorica. Maximus 
is related to have led as many as 60,000 British youths 
to Gaul. 1 Usher calculates that the number would be more 
like 30,000 soldiers, with some 100,000 peasants to form the 
settlement. 2 On this subject of Maximus's expedition to 
Brittany, there remains a good deal of obscurity. Lobineau, 
the historian of Brittany, disbelieves it. But nothing can 
discredit the fact so universally admitted that vast numbers 
of the Britons did settle in Brittany. Breton tradition to 
this day bears it out ; local names and language are strongly 
in its favour. Our next section will show that the country 
was populous enough to spare these hosts, military and 
otherwise, and yet remain well inhabited. 

4. The resistance offered to the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, 
an evidence of the numerical and material strength of the 
Britons. 

It took these invading tribes, usually called "Anglo- 
Saxons," a hundred and fifty years to establish themselves 

1 Richard of Circnc. Anc. State of Brit. ii. 2, 35 ; Nmnius, sect. 27. 
2 Usseri, Autiq. Brit. Eccles, pp. 107, 108. 



2 02 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

on British soil. The value of resistance is to be calculated 
according to the force resisted. 

The Anglo-Saxon invasions, and the wars which suc- 
ceeded them, continued as we have shown from A.D. 449 
to A.D. 828, when Egbert, of Wessex, received the dignity 
of Bretwalda. This length of conflict tells an instructive 
as well as a ghastly tale. We clo not disguise the fact, that 
much of the obstruction to Saxon progress in the later ages 
of the Conquest, proceeded from the Saxons themselves — 
one Saxon state waging war with another — but throughout 
this long and most dreary period, the Britons never ceased 
to be conspicuous in the field, mostly as the only opponents. 

When Vortigern invited Hengist and Horsa and their 
companions to aid against the Picts and Scots, and pro- 
bably also against a party amongst the Britons who sym- 
pathized still with Roman supremacy, the martial tone and 
equipment of the Britons must be confessed to have been 
inferior. But they had men among them who knew the 
Roman art of war. They had workers in iron and brass, 
who had been taught to fabricate the Roman arms. Romans 
of rank, and most likely officers of the army, were still in 
their midst, though not perhaps earnest helpers in the 
defence of the island. In Csesar's time the Britons had no 
better weapons than the Germans ; they had no steel, 
though probably they had bronze blades ; but after long- 
schooling under the most martial nation of the earth, they 
could no longer be in so ignorant a condition. Their mis- 
fortune was, that they were poor — "without martial stores," 
as Bede expresses it — and that the means and men they 
commanded were divided under leaders of different opinions 
and sympathies. 

Vortigern was a party leader, and many of the people 
of the land refused to enlist under his banners. The 
Welsh Triads inform us that the Cymry were opposed to 



WEAKNESS FROM DISSENSION. 203 

the invitation sent to the Saxons. But A r ortigern per- 
severed ; and on this account, the invitation having turned 
out disastrously to the whole British race — he is always 
spoken of in the Triads with unsparing bitterness and 
contempt. 1 This dissension greatly reduced the force first 
confronted with the invaders. The party of Ambrosius 
was numerous, and they were opposed to all Vortigern's 
acts. The Cymry were also numerous, probably much 
more so than the Lloegrians and the Ambrosian party 
together. Until, therefore, the danger of losing their 
country stared them in the face, and their own annihilation 
was threatened, they kept apart and neutralized each 
other's effective action. The invaders had comparatively 
easy work of it. So it was that Hengist managed at 
length to settle his handful of followers in Kent, and found 
there a kingdom. Even under the circumstances, however,, 
it cost him twenty years of conflict to do the work. 

This first troop of Jutish [Saxons)^as by no means 
numerous, although they proved of great service at the 
first to Vortigern in repelling the Scottish Celts. But their 
number when they turned traitors, and forced a permanent 
settlement in the country, rapidly increased. An old 
Chronicler says, referring, it may be, to the whole of the 
Anglo-Saxon invaders, that a " large multitude " joined 
them from every province in Germany. 2 Geoffrey, with 
his usual magniloquence, assures us that Hengist raised in 
Germany an army of no less than 300,000 men, and fitting- 
out a^fleet, returned with them into Britain. 3 The exagge- 
ration is palpable. Nennius says, "at that time the Saxons 

1 Comp. Triads, passim. - Ethelward's Chron. B. i. 

3 Brit. Hist. vi. 15. There is obviously here an enormous exaggeration. 
To convey such a multitude it would require a fleet of 1,500 vessels, 
giving 200 men to each : or even 7,000 vessels of the capacity of those 
used by Csesar in conveying his 30,000 men across. He used 700 ships. 



-204 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

greatly increased in Britain, both in strength and numbers." 1 
We are told by Bede that their first victories over the 
Picts being known in Germany, " as also the fertility of 
the country, and the cowardice of the Britons, a more 
considerable fleet was sent over, bringing a still greater 
number of men, who being added to the former, 
made up an invincible army." 2 When Bede speaks of 
"" cowardice," it is well to remember that he was himself a 
rather prejudiced German, and withal a borrower from the 
pages of Gildas — into whose trustworthiness it will be 
our duty by and by to examine. If the history of the 
Britons from beginning to end proves anything, it proves 
•that in the virtue of courage they are beyond impeachment, 
•except that not unfrequently its superfluity overbalanced 
their caution and discretion. 

With all their reinforcements the invaders made but 
slow progress. With all the weakness which division 
created among the Britons, they still fought heroically. 
Vortigern being for the present, as represented by 
Geoffrey, in disgrace and deposed, owing to his mar- 
riage with Rhonwen, daughter of Hengist, 3 and, as was 
.suspected, his secret plotting in favour of the Saxons, his 
eldest son Vortimer, in Welsh history called Gwrthefyr, 
took the command, and, according to Nennius, four times 
valorously encountered the enemy. 4 He drove them 
back to the isle of Thanet, thrice shut them up there, 
besetting them on the western side. In one MS. of 
Nennius it is stated that the Saxons took to their ships, 

1 Hist. Brit. 50. 

2 Ecchs. Hist. i. 15 ; Sax. Chron. ann. 449; Nennius, 43. 

3 Geoff, of Mon. Brit. Hist. vi. 12. " It was through the devil entering 
into his heart that he who was a Christian should fall in love with a 
.pagan." 

i Hist. Brit. 43, 44. 



FIRST CONFLICTS. 205 

and departed for five years ; and in the work bearing the 
name of Gildas, these most cruel robbers (crudelissimi 
praedones) as they are called, finding an opportunity, 
returned to their own country (recessissent in domum). 1 
This, however, could only be for a season, and in order to 
obtain temporary repose and replenish their wasted forces. 
For twenty years had they to fight their way into possession 
of the first corner of the country — the very corner which 
Caesar had also first coveted. They fought and failed, and 
fought again, however, until the object they desired was 
gained. " They fought at ^Egelsthrep, and there Horsa 
was slain." They fought next year at Crecanford (Cray- 
ford), and there Hengist and Acsa, his son, "slew four 
troops of Britons with the edge of the sword." Next 
year there was a great conflict at the same place, 
when Hengist " slew four thousand men." 2 A few 
years later we hear of battles at Wippids-fleet, at 
Cymenes-ora, on the banks of the river Maercredsburn, at 
Andreds-cester — places difficult now to identify — but of 
the last it is said that Ella "slew all that dwelt therein, 
so that not a single Briton was there left." In 495, 
Cerdic, with his son Cenric, and "five ships," arrived, and 
the Britons, who by this time had allowed Hengist to settle 
down in Kent, and Ella in Sussex, contested several battle- 
fields in the South-West about Hampshire, disputing the 
ground inch by inch for a period of four-and-twenty years. 
Cerdic, however, had not come over to be beaten. In the 
year 519 he gained a decisive victory at Cerdicsford, " and 
from that day forth the royal offspring of the West Saxons 
reigned." But setting up a kingdom in other people's 
territory is one thing, to enjoy security and rest is quite 
another. Again and again the Britons return to the charge 

1 De Excid. Brit. 25. Sax Chron. arm. 455 — 457. 



206 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and not till a new invasion on another part of the coast 
demands their presence and prowess, is Cerdic allowed 
leisure to fit on his crown. " It was not until fourscore- 
years after the disembarkation," observes Mackintosh, 
■"that Cerdic, at the head of the West Saxons, made a 
lasting impression on the Western Britons in a series of 
battles where he was probably resisted by the valiant 
Arthur." l 

Already on the coast of Essex, Ercenwine, with a horde 
of pirates, challenges the Britons to hold their own ; and 
no sooner is this challenge accepted, than another is hurled 
at them on the neighbouring coast of Norfolk and Suffolk 
by Uffa and his Angles. Difficulties thicken, but the 
islanders are not yet disheartened. 

These invaders in turn, or simultaneously, having been 
encountered, a still more powerful force from the same 
inexhaustible region invades the North. In the year 547, 
Ida and his Angles establish themselves between the Tweed 
and the Forth. The Britons of these parts have hastily to 
collect an army, and take the field. The regions now 
covered by the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, 
Westmoreland, and the South of Scotland, become the 
scenes of many sanguinary conflicts. This was about the 
time when Aneurin and Llywarch Hen sang their verses, 
and this was the country which a section of the nation 
of the Cymry, called "Cumbrians," then called their 
own. At this period was contested the. disastrous battle 
of Cattraethy wherein Aneurin foug"ht, and which forms 
the subject of his poem, the Gododin? This battle 
deprived the Cymry of their rule in those parts. Multi- 

1 Hist, of England, i. 31. 

2 The Gododin seems to be named after the tribe of the region, whose 
name the Romans varied into "Ottadini." 



CONFLICTS IN THE NORTH-WEST. 207 

tudes submitted to the victors. Aneurin and Llywarch 
Hen, of Argoed, 

" Arcades ambo, 
Et cantare pares," 

lost their country and their state, and retired, with their 
spirit of poetry and liberty unshackled, into the secure 
asylum of the mountains of Wales. 

These sore conflicts in the North took place about a 
hundred years after the first settlement of Saxon tribes in 
the South. This interval was a time of gloom and horror 
to the Britons. It determined the question whether Britain 
was to be the prey of strangers. It relegated to the care of 
barbarism the whole of Roman civilization left in the country. 
Taken at a disadvantage, torn by faction, attacked in all direc- 
tions, and with a fierceness almost unparalleled, by Picts 
and Scots, Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, who, acting - as if by 
concert, seemed resolved upon compassing their total ruin, 
it had been no cause for wonder if they had succumbed to 
so hard a fate, and their name had been blotted out of the 
records of succeeding ages. But they managed to hold up 
their head, and to perpetuate their race and name. Whole 
bodies of them, it is true, entered into "confederacy" 
with the Saxons. The entire kingdom of Lloegria did 
this. The tribe of the Brython did this. They " became 
Saxons/' as the Triad expresses it, thus diminishing the 
i nil uence and power of their own brethren, and swelling 
the ranks, and augmenting the power and territory of the 
invaders. But the "true Britons," (as they might well 
call themselves) never wavered, never flinched. Where 
they could they kept possession of the walled towns, and 
strong castles and camps, left so thickly strewn over the 
island by the Romans ; and, where obliged to quit these, 
they converted hills and forests into new fortresses, and 



208 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

carried on for ages a guerilla warfare in the very heart of 
the Saxon States. 

After the Anglian conquest of the North and the setting 
up of the Kingdom of Northumbria, British resistance 
took the form, chiefly, of occasional devastating incursions, 
and insurrections. These were not movements originating 
merely in the West. They occurred as the work of a people 
still existing in the heart of England. The insurgents are 
often termed " Welsh " ( Wealhas), but not because they 
came from Wales, but because this was the name the Anglo- 
Saxons gave to a people not belonging to their own race. 
We find that though the Kingdom of Wessex had been in 
a manner founded since A.D. 495 or thereabouts, Cerdic and 
his successors had frequent occasion to meet the Britons in 
the field long years after that time. In A.D. 552, the very 
year Ethelbert, first Christian king of Saxon race, was 
born, they fought a severe battle at Searo-byrig (Old Sarum, 
in Hampshire) ; the following year at Berin-byrig (Banbury, 
in Oxfordshire); in 571 at a place in Bedfordshire; six 
years later in Gloucestershire, and seven years later still at 
Fethan-lea, a place identified by some with Frethern. 1 

Mighty conflicts and innumerable skirmishes of which no 
record has reached us must have taken place between the 
Cymry and Midland Anglo-Saxons, for the Kingdom of 
Mercia was only founded in A.D. 586 — a hundred and thirty- 
seven years after the Hengist incursion — and its position 
would necessitate manifold quarrels with the Britons of 
Wales and neighbouring regions, many of whose posses- 
sions it swallowed up. 

After this we come to a period of greater repose to the 
Britons. The Anglo-Saxons, before they had settled all their 
differences with the original inhabitants, began in earnest to 

1 Sax. Chron. ann. 495 — 584. 



BRITISH RESISTANCE CONTINUES. 2O0. 

quarrel amongst themselves. A long series of desolating 
wars occurred between Wessex, Mercia, and the Xorthern 
Kingdom, which continued to rage with greater or less 
fury until the time of Egbert, when the whole were 
united under one general government. For 200 years 
or more we hear little of contests between the Anglo- 
Saxons and the Britons, beyond occasional raids and 
outbreaks. 

What has now been adduced is sufficient to show that a 
powerful opposition w r as offered to the Anglo-Saxons, and 
continued for some hundreds of years, by a fraction only 
of the Ancient Britons. If they had been all united, and 
presented a combined and well-compacted front to the foe, 
it is clear enough he could never have made good his footing 
in the land. Celtic disunion alone made possible Anglo- 
Saxon triumph, and was the " g - ood-and-evil '' ag'ent in 
originating the majestic creation of the modern English 
nation. If, with their numbers reduced by this cause, they 
still accomplished what history, impartially read, gives 
them credit for, they must have been a people not only of 
undaunted courage, but of great resources. They at last 
set a limit to Anglo-Saxon progress. The wave of 
conquest met with an unyielding barrier. A people so 
ambitious of territory as the Anglo-Saxons were only 
by the sheerest inability to advance prevented from 
incorporating the whole of Wales, Strathclyde, and 
West Wales, or Cornwall, into their own proper dominion. 
It is quite conceivable that but for the mutual jealousies 
of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, this work might, in 
course of time, have been accomplished. Northumbria 
would long have anticipated the conquest of Strathclyde 
by Kenneth III. of Scotland (.\.D. 973) if Mercia had 
not been treading on her heels; and Mercia would in 



2IO THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

time have incorporated Wales had not Wessex been 
so powerful as her rival. The different States of the 
Heptarchy, or Octarchy, and especially the three just- 
named, had, by the tenth century, in spite of the 
destruction of life by almost incessant wars, greatly multi- 
plied in population, having received, en masse, the Lloe- 
grians, Brython, and probably the Coranians, into their 
body at an early stage of the Conquest, as well as myriads 
of Britons of the Cymric and other stocks in subsequent 
times ; they had continued advancing in numbers for three 
or four hundred years, and had spread themselves as 
naturalized possessors, of a mixed race, over the greater 
part of the island, excepting the countries mentioned on 
the Western side. Here, still, a brave people guarded their 
" Thermopylae," hurling grim defiance at the invaders' 
advance, and here the so-called Anglo-Saxons ceased 
advancing. 

SECTION VII. 

The Extent to which the Britons and Anglo-Saxons became 
incorporated into One People. 

The preceding pages have made the conclusion certain 
that amalgamation between the two races took place. We 
have now to make manifest the extent of that amalgamation. 

It is generally allowed, even by " Anglo-Saxon " en- 
thusiasts, that the English have not derived an immaculate 
descent from the North Sea freebooters. But in the con- 
ception of most people, the amount of Celtic blood intermixed 
is very small. " When the Saxons arrived, the Ancient 
Britons were all slain, or driven into the mountains of 
Wales." This is the strain of the " school histories of 
England," and from these, repeating the same note, most 



INCORPORATION OF BRITONS AND SAXONS. 2 I I 

people take their impressions, and nurse their prejudices, 
and it will take a long time before the thorough-going - , 
unscientific Englishman brooks the idea that he is any- 
thing less than a Saxon. Somehow this piece of adventu- 
rous imagination has been taken as a postulate in English 
history. Even some writers of attainment, and learned 
college lecturers, still slide into so fallacious a mode of 
representation — a mode, it need hardly be said, unworthy 
of an age of historic research and boasted scientific pro- 
gress. If the history of England, and of British Ethnology, 
when read rightly, and only with a view to truth, teaches 
anything, it teaches that the English people have to a far 
wider extent had their origin in an amalgamation with the 
aborigines of this island, than we have been accustomed 
in our easy, unenquiring way, to believe. The question 
however, we may note by the way, is not one relating 
solely to the Anglo-Saxons and the Ancient Britons, 
for a great variety of elements have been introduced 
into the population of Britain, as we have already in 
the course of our discussions explained. But the two 
largest contributories to the stream of English blood 
are the Celtic and the Germanic, or, limiting terms more 
strictly, the Cymric and Anglo-Saxon. Our present section 
has to treat upon this specific part of the general subject. 
In showing how far the aboriginal and Anglo-Saxon races 
coalesced upon the subjugation of the former, we begin Im- 
proving the vast preponderance in number of the former at 
the outset of the struggle, and that the latter suffered as 
great a diminution by the casualties of war as their com- 
petitors, so that their relative strength continued the same ; 
and then offer a variety of arguments in support of the 
position that the soil of Central Britain was never deserted 
by the first possessors, but gradually became the common 
inheritance of a complex but united race. 

I' 2 



2 12 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

i. Gildas Examined. 

Before proceeding further, it is necessary to search into 
the foundations of the popular belief respecting the state 
of the Britons at the crisis of the Anglo-Saxon invasion, 
and their complete expulsion by that invasion from the soil 
of England. That belief is to the effect that the Britons, 
after the departure of the Romans, were in a completely 
prostrate condition, were incapable of offering resistance 
to Picts, Scots, or Saxons, and were ruthlessly mown down 
by the sword without deliverance, a small " remnant " only 
barely escaping, like sheep from the jaws of devouring 
wolves, into the mountains of the West, or as miserable 
fugitives across sea to Brittany. This belief, instilled to 
this day alike into the child's mind in the nursery, and the 
student's in the lecture-room, is, in all probability, as 
palpable a superstition, as devoid of foundation, as gratuit- 
ous, and as impossible of rational credence, as any wild 
and idle romance ever imposed upon unsuspecting child- 
hood. 

The story upon which this notion is founded is graphic 
and compact as any in Homer, and, of course, highly 
flattering to our Saxon pride, and it is only a pity it is not 
true. But how did it originate, and who is responsible for 
its first propagation ? Has it any countenance in any 
authentic ancient historian, or in any induction which may 
be arrived at from contemporary circumstances and facts ? 
"We answer the former question by saying, the story is 
authenticated solely by the monk Gildas — himself scarcely 
authenticated ; he is alone responsible for it : and the latter, 
by saying, it receives no credence whatever from any inde- 
pendent and credible historian, or from the candid 
examination of any known contemporary facts. That a 
belief based on so uncertain a foundation should be found 
as part of the faith of modern Englishmen, only shows how 



GILDAS EXAMINED. 213 

fondly mankind cling to established ideas, and by what 
subtle and easy processes groundless ideas sometimes 
become established. 

Let us quote Gildas's story, and then examine its trust- 
worthiness. In a work called after his name, and entitled 
Dc Excidio Britannia, he gives the saddest picture 
imaginable of the condition of the Britons after the with- 
drawal of the Romans, and finishes off the last and darkest 
shades with two strokes of his brush representing the 
afflictions wrought by the Picts and Scots, and the Saxons. 
The Britons, now a " wretched remnant," pressed by the 
Picts and Scots, send a letter to Aetius, a powerful Roman 
citizen, as follows : — " To Aetius, now consul for the third 
time : The groans of the Britons. The barbarians drive 
us to the sea ; the sea throws us back on the barbarians : 
thus two modes of death await us — we are either slain or 
drowned." x This is a picture of helplessness scarcely 
surpassed. The Romans not responding in this last 
extremity, the Britons take counsel what to do. But they 
go from bad to worse. " Then all the councillors, together 
with that proud tyrant Gurthrigern (Vortigern), the British 
king, were so blinded, that, as a protection to their country, 
they sealed its doom by inviting in among them (like 
wolves into the sheep-fold) the fierce and impious Saxons, 
a race hateful both to God and men, to repel the invasions 
of the Northern nations. Nothing was ever so pernicious 
to our country. ... A multitude of whelps came forth 
from the lair of the barbaric lioness. They first landed on 
the Eastern side of the island. . . and there fixed their 
sharp talons. . . . Their mother-land, finding her 
first brood thus successful, sends forth a larger company 
of her wolfish offspring, which, sailing over, join themselves 
to their bastard comrades." - 

1 Dc Excidio Brilannicc, 20. " Ibid. 23. 



214 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

" Some, therefore, of the miserable remnant being taken 
in the mountains, were murdered in great numbers ; others, 
constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves to be 
slaves for ever to their foes, running the risk of being 
instantly slain, which truly was the greatest favour that 
could be offered them ; some others passed beyond the seas 
with loud lamentations instead of the voice of exhortation : 
' Thou hast given us as sheep to be slaughtered, and among 
the Gentiles hast thou dispersed us.' Others committing 
the safeguard of their lives, which were in continual 
jeopardy, to the mountains, precipices, thickly-wooded 
forests, and to the rocks of the seas (albeit with trembling 
hearts) remained still in their country/' l 

This is the story upon which the popular belief has been 
built. We are not unmindful that Venerable Bede and 
Nennius give the same general account as that given by 
Gildas ; but as these authors flourished the former more than 
a century, the latter about three centuries, later than Gildas, 
and drew their materials from his pages, their accounts can 
offer no corroboration to his, and are worthy of no con- 
sideration, if his can be shown to be unreliable. Besides, 
if any narrators subsequent to Gildas had pretended to 
draw from original British sources, the testimony left by 
Gildas would go to confute them, for he expressly states 
that he himself was unable to draw from such sources, 
there being none such in existence — but drew from foreign 
accounts [transmarina relatione). Those, therefore, who 
accord to Gildas's account the character of credibility, must, 
in so far as the state of the Britons at the Saxon conquest, 
and the achievement of that conquest are concerned, take 
Gildas as their sole authority. 

Our attention, must, therefore, centre upon Gildas ; and 
the value of the doctrine that the Britons were a craven 

1 Dc Excid. Brit. 2*. 



GILDAS EXAMINED. 215 

• crowd, incapable of resistance, instantly scattered, driven 
into the sea, and into the mountains, must be measured by 
the value of his testimony. 

Let us inquire, then, briefly, into the history of Gildas, 
and without fatiguing the reader with minutiae, scrutinize 
with some degree of care the value of his narration. 

As to who Gildas was, and when he flourished, we 
■ cannot do better than quote the words of Air. Hardy, in his 
preface to the great work already frequently cited in our 
pages. 1 " Gildas (or Gildus, as the name is given by Beda 
and Alcuin) claims, on account of his antiquity, the earliest 
place in this collection. His life has been twice written at 
different times ; the first is attributed to St. Gildas de Ruys 
in Brittany, in the 1 ith century, and the second to Caradoc 
of Llancarvan, who flourished in the 12th century." 

It will appear, therefore, that these biographies were 
written, one five hundred, the other six hundred years 
after Gildas's age. Not only from this fact, but 
especially from the subsequent words of Mr. Hardy, 
their accounts must be held totally devoid of value. " As 
both these authors have confounded the actions of two 
persons at least of the name of Gildas, it will be advisable 
in this sketch of his life to rely on the few and obscure 
notices relating to himself, which are to be discovered in 
his work."' Nothing of value is known of the author, 
therefore, except what is said of him in the work. But 
what is the value of this r It must be conceded, of course, 
that the work called by Gildas's name, was written by some 
one ; but it is an immense demand upon our credulity t< 1 
require the belief that the known work is correct in all that 
it says of the otherwise unknown author. 

But what is the work's account of its author ? Let Mr. 
1 lardy again speak. " It appears from these notices, that 

1 Monumenta Historica Britannica. See pp. 59, Co. 



2l6 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Gildas was born in Britain, in the year of the siege of 
Mount Badon ; * that he exercised some sort of ecclesiastical 

function ; that he crossed the sea, and that, at the 

earnest request of his friends, after ten years' entreaty, he 
composed his epistle. Various dates have been assigned 
to the siege of Mount Badon, but according to the Annates 
Cambria, apparently the best of all existing authorities, it 
took place in A.D. 516. In that year, therefore, let us say 
Gildas was born. It appears to have been generally allowed, 
from a passage in the work, 2 that he wrote his epistle in 
Armorica. We are to conclude that he went abroad at 
least as early as A.D. 550. If he took ten years to consider 
and mature his history, it would bring the period of its- 
composition to A.D. 560." 3 

Such then is the man. His life has been written by two 
different biographers, but both lived more than 500 years 
after his time, and both have confounded together the lives 
of two different individuals of the same name. If they have 
ascribed to A, the acts of B, and vice versa, it is quite con- 
ceivable that they should ascribe the acts of both to a person 
perfectly supposititious. These biographers being unworthy 
of any but the most sparing credit, we are thrown back for 
all that we know of Gildas upon a few obscure allusions 
contained in a work ascribed to himself. Gildas may have 
been an authentic person. But the evidence is, to say the 
least, defective, and it is just possible that Gildas is simply 
an assumed name attached by an unknown writer to a work 
which for the most part was a work of imagination. The 
name seems to have been common, for there are at least two 
or three persons called Gildas, contemporaries, mentioned 
— Gildas Sapiens (our supposed author), Gildas Cambrius,. 

1 De E.xcid. Brit. 26. - Ibid. 

3 Monumenta Hist. Brit. p. 60. 



GILDAS EXAMINED. 217 

and Gild as Quartus, and it is to be noted that the work of 
Nennius, the Historia Britonum, was for many ages ascribed 
to a Gildas. 

On the whole there is reason for the language used by- 
Mr. Stephenson in his preface to the original Latin edition 
recently published by the English Historical Society : "We 
are unable to speak with certainty as to his (Gildas's) 
parentage, his country, or even his name, the period when 
he lived, or the works of which he was the author." 

But, allowing for the moment that Gildas was an authentic 
person, and the author of the Excidium Britannia, how far 
is his book an adequate authority for the belief founded 
upon its representations ? 

Mr. Hardy says : " The Epistle of Gildas contains but 
very few incidents of historical interest, and those are 
involved in a multitude of words. The account which he 
gives of his materials in chap. 2 prepares his readers to 
expect a very meagre narrative, and such is precisely the 
character of the work. In the earlier portion, he exhibits 
but an indistinct acquaintance with the events which took 
place towards the conclusion of the Roman domination in 
Britain and during the following century ; his narrative is 
general, confused, and declamatory, and except in very few 
instances, it cannot be traced to any known source. It is 
remarkable that when he comes to his own times, he is, if 
possible, more obscure and his facts less copious. As to 
his authorities, Gildas says that he wrote more from foreign 
relation than from written evidences pertaining to his own 
country} And the vague and meagre manner in which 

1 Quantum tamen potuero, non tarn ex scripturis patriae scripto- 
rumve monumentis, quippe quso, vel si qua fuerint, aut ignibua hostium 
exusta, aut civium exsilii classe longius deportata non compareanl,. 
quani transmarina relatione, quae crebris irrupta intercapedinibus non 

satis claret. 



2l8 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the Roman transactions in the island are hinted at, rather 
than described, perfectly coincides with his own acknow- 
ledgment. For the second period [the period which spe- 
cially concerns our subject] his veracity must rest entirely 
on his own authority, as none of the contemporaneous 
Greek or Roman writers afford it any support, but the 
■ contrary; his statement relative to the abandonment of the 
island by the Romans from the Empire of Maximus, and 
the subsequent erection of the Roman walls, are wholly 
irreconcilable with their testimony. From the early part 
of the 5th century, however, when the Greek and Roman 
writers cease to notice the affairs of Britain, his narrative, 
on whatever authority it may have been founded, has been 
adopted without question by Beda and succeeding - authors, 
and accepted, notwithstanding its barrenness of facts and 
pompous obscurity, by all but general consent, as the basis 
of early English history." l 

It should excite no wonder then that Gibbon should 
characterize Gildas and his History in the following words : 
" A monk, who, in the profound ignorance of human life, 
has presumed to exercise the office of historian, strangely 
disfigures the state of Britain at the time of its separation 
from the Roman Empire. Gildas describes in florid lan- 
guage the improvements of agriculture, the foreign trade 
which flowed with every tide into the Thames and Severn, 
the solid and lofty construction of public and private 
edifices. He accuses the sinful luxury of the British 
people — of a people, according to the same writer, ignorant 
of the most simple arts, and incapable, without the aid of 
the Romans, of providing walls of stone, or weapons of 
iron, for defence of their native land." 

Now it is a canon in historical criticism that an author 
is worthy of credence in proportion as he draws from 

l Monum. Hist. Brit. p. 61. 



GILDAS'S BLUNDER DETECTED. 2IQ 

authentic sources, or was himself an eye-witness of the 
events recorded ; is supported by other independent 
testimony ; and is free from bias and prejudice. On all 
these points Gildas falls short. He himself confesses 
that as to sources he was in command of " no documents 
of the country" where the events took place, but depended 
on reports which reached him beyond sea (transmarina 
relatione). He does not even hint that any stray docu- 
ments which had escaped the fire of the barbarians and 
safely crossed the seas, had fallen into his hands. So far 
from this he even implies a doubt as to whether any such 
ever existed—" if there ever were any of them " (si qua 
fuerint). 1 It was certainly to his credit that he delayed 
ten years, as he informs us, committing his story to writing', 
and only did so at , last at the pressing entreaty of his 
friends ; but it is just as likely that his reluctance arose 
from conscious untrustworthiness as from modesty or the 
purpose of further elaboration. 



Gildas'' 's Blunder, or Fraud, detected. 

From the facts now about to be narrated, it will appear 
extremely probable, nay, even morally certain, that the 
description given by the author of the Dc Excidio 
Britannia of the impotence and distress of the Britons, 
did not in strictness apply to the insular Britons at all. It 
will appear that the celebrated letter to Aetius, Consul for 
the third time, entitled, " The Groans of the Britons : The 
Barbarians drive us to the Sea," 2 &c. (see p. 213), of which 

1 Dc Excid. Brit. 2. 
2 Kepellunt nos barbari ad mare, repcllit nos mare ad barbaros ; inter 
haec oriuntur duo genera i'unerum, aut jugulamur aut mergimur.— Dc 

Excid. 1 j. 



220 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

so much has been made, in all probability never proceeded 
from the Britons. It may be said that the very form of 
this letter, so rhetorical, sententious, and antithetic, casts 
doubt upon its authenticity. No people under pressing 
misfortune would write to the Roman Governor in such 
pedantic language ; and that the pretended historian had 
never come upon such a British document in written form 
is conclusively proved by himself, when he confesses that 
he drew not his narrative from documents of his own 
country, there being none such existing, but from "foreign 
relation." He was writing at a distance of more than a 
hundred years after the supposed events ; he was writing 
without the authority of a single document belonging to 
Britain ; in no other independent author do we find a 
syllable respecting a letter, message, or deputation from 
the insular Britons to Aetius, deploring their helplessness> 
and miserably craving succour. Is it possible that this 
author, for some reason unknown, charged to the brim with 
the bitterest hostility towards the Britons, has caught at 
any rumour floating in Brittany, where he was writing, or 
has fallen in with some general record of some message or 
embassy to Aetius, proceeding, not from the Britons, but 
from the Bretons, and that in his eagerness at detraction, 
or in his blundering haste, he has applied the whole to the 
former ? Can it be that upon such a blunder, or such a 
piece of historic fraud, believed in for 1200 years, has been 
founded the doctrine taught by almost general consent in 
our modern histories, and in our schools and families, con- 
cerning the utter ruin and extirpation of the Ancient 
Britons ! 

Let us examine some well-authenticated facts touching 
a message to Aetius. We all know that St. Germanus, 
Bishop of Auxerre, paid two visits to Britain in the defence 
of the Catholic doctrine against Arianism, and that the 



THE TESTIMONY OF ZEUoS. 221 

latter of these visits was in a.d. 447. During the first 
visit, about fifteen years before, when he was accompanied 
by Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, occurred the alleged "Alle- 
luiatic Victory," when the enemy was convinced " both by 
preaching and by miracle." The second visit was short, 
the heretics were confuted and silenced in a public discus- 
sion. Germanus now, having settled the Britons in the 
faith, returned to Gaul. It is important to remember that 
this was in the year 447, and also that this was the very 
year in which Aetius was "Consul for the third time." 

Zeuss, in his learned work on the Germans, 1 has a pas- 
sage respecting this return of St. Germanus into Gaul, 
with a reference to Constantius' s life of Germanus, which 
suggests more than it expresses. He says : " Presbyter 
Constantius relates that as Bishop Germanus was returning 
from Britain, where at the time the Saxons had made a 
descent, his intercession was besought by envoys from the 
Armoricans, against whom, on account of their defection, 
Aetius [then Controller of the Empire — rempublicam 
gubernabat] had let loose the King of the Alans that he 
might chastise them. They [the Armoricans] are not as 
yet called Britons, but soon they are often so called." 2 

1 Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstammc. Mi'inchen, 1S37. 

2 " Als Bischof Germanus, erzahlt Presbyter Constantius, aus Bri- 
tannien, wo damals die Sachsen eingefallen waren, zuri'ickkehrte, baten 
ihm Gesandte der Armoricker um seine Verwendung, den Aetius hatte 
wegen ihres Abfalls den Alanen Konig zu ihrer Ziichtigung gegen sie 
losgelassen. Britannen sind noch nicht genannt ; bald wird ihrer 
ofter gedacht." Die Deutsch. und die Nachbarstanune, p. 576. 

With reference to the point that the Armoricans were at an early period 
— earlier than Gildas — called Britanni, he says (p. 194): "The Franks 
called the warlike people inhabiting the North-Western part of Gaul 
Bretton ; the Latin writers since the 5th century called them Bvitanni and 
Bnttones, and their country Britannia Cismarina." Die Franken (nannten) 
das Kampflustige Volk in der Nordwesteckc von Gallien Bretton ; die 
Lateinischen Schriftsteller schon seit dem 5 Jahrhundert Brittanni, 



222 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

It does not appear that the facts here referred to as re- 
related by Presbyter Constantius in his life of St. Germanus 
— a work of considerable interest and of authority, written 
by a contemporary of the bishop 1 — suggested anything to 
the mind of Zeuss beyond their own bare contents. To 
Dr. R. G. Latham, however, reading the passage in Zeuss, 
the coincidence of date and of an appeal to Aetius appeared 
very striking. 2 

Brittones, ihr Land Britannia Cismarina (Bretagne). Lappenberg 
places as early as the usurpation of Maximus in Britain (a.d. 383) the 
settlement of a Roman military colony, consisting of British warriors, 
in Armorica, which has given name as well as a distinct character and 
history to Bretagne. — (Gibbon, vol. iv. p. 391, note.) In Sidonius 
Apollinaris (a.d. 468), iii. 9, pp. 73-74 ; Jornandes (a.d. 550), c. 45, p. 
678 ; and in Gregory of Tours (a.d. 570), we have accounts of another 
early military settlement of Britons in Armorica, or on its confines on 
the River Loire. "The feeble Emperor, Anthemius," saj's Gibbon? 
" could only procure for their (the Gauls) defence the service of 12,000 
British auxiliaries. Riothamus, one of the independent kings or chief- 
tains of the island (' Britonum rex ' — Jornandes) was persuaded to 
transport his troops (' oceano a navibus egressus '—Jornandes) to the 
Continent of Gaul ; he sailed up the Loire, and established his quarters 
in Berry, where the people complained of these oppressive allies, till 
they were destroyed or dispersed by the arms of the Visigoths." — Mil- 
man and Smith's Ed. iv. 288. 

1 Acta Sanctorum, vii. 216. (The Bollandists.) Constantius's words 
are: "Vix domum de transmarina expeditione remeaverat, et jam 
legatio Armoricani tractus fatigationem beati Antistitis ambiebat. 
Offensus enim superba insolentia regionis vir magniflcus Aetius, qui 
turn rempublicam gubernabat, Eochari, ferocissimo Alanorum regi, 
loca ilia inclinanda pro rebellionis praesumptione permiserat, quae ille 
aviditate barbaricae cupiditatis inhiaverat. . . . Medioque inter- 
prete primum precem supplicem fundit. ... Ad stationis quietem 
rex exercitusque se recipit ; pacis securitatem fidelissimam pollicetur, ea 
conditione, ut venia, quam ipse praestiterat, ab imperatore vel ab Aetio 
peteretur. Interea per intercessionem et meritum sacerdotis rex com- 
pressus est, exercitus revocatus, provinciae a vastationibus absolutae." 

- Dr. Latham immediately communicated his impressions to the 
author, who, he knew, was revising this work for a new edition, 
counselling further enquiry. We believe the question had never before 
been raised. 



HILDAS S FRAUD, OR BLUNDER. 223 

Bishop Germanus proceeded on his journey to Ravenna, 
where, having succeeded in his good offices on behalf of the 
Armoricans by obtaining peace for them from the Emperor 
(Valentinian III.) and Aetius, soon after, in July, 448, he died. 

Now the coincidences to be accounted for are these : 
Gildas, writing a century after the event, says that the 
Britons sent a "letter" to Aetius beseeching his protection; 
Constantius, living at the time, says that the Armoricans 
(early called "Brettons") obtained the good offices of St. 
Germanus on their behalf with Aetius : the supposed letter 
of the Britons was sent in the year when Aetius was third 
time Consul, which we know was A.D. 446-7 ; the well- 
authenticated mission of St. Germanus on behalf of the 
Armorican Brettons was in the same identical year ; both 
appeals were against "barbarians," the barbarians in the 
case of Brittany being the Alani, led on by their King 
Eochar — in the case of Britain, the Picts and Scots. 

It is, of course, not absolutely impossible that events so 
nearly coinciding should have taken place in the case of 
two peoples at the same time. If we had in Gildas the 
authority of a contemporary writer, with the names of per- 
sons and details of circumstances given, as we have in Pres- 
byter Constantius, it might be difficult to choose between the 
two, as we might be compelled to admit the equal reliable- 
ness of both ; but Gildas lived ages after the pretended 
" letter to Aetius " was written, and confesses that for his 
statement he had no documents of the country (Britain) 
to consult, but relied simply upon a report which reached 
him across sea (transmarina relatione). The narrative given 
by < !onstantius has come down in its integrity to our day : 
no allusion to the letter to Aetius containing the "groans 
oi the Britons" is found in any writer except Gildas, and 
the personality of Gildas, with the trustworthiness of the 
author of the De Excidio Britannia, whether we call him 



.2 24 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Gildas or by some other name, are so problematical as to 
constitute no foundation for our faith. 

The evidence is circumstantial and moral, and in the 
trial of all questions, whether historical or criminal, no 
evidence is so reliable. This case must be decided by the 
balance of probability . It is improbable that all the co- 
incidences above mentioned should have taken place, and 
we think it is impossible for any enlightened and honest 
judgment to resist the conclusion that the writer called 
Gildas has in this matter applied to the Britons of Britain 
what properly belonged to the " Brittones " of " Britannia 
Cismarina," — so-called before his age, and deriving their 
name from blood-relationship with the insular Britons. 

It may be added that Gildas drew from no authentic 
sources except when treating of times earlier than the 
period of which we are now inquiring — the early Saxon 
period — and even when treating of those earlier times, he 
comes into helpless collision with trustworthy historians, 
such as Caesar and Tacitus, on points involving the credit 
of the Britons — points which those historians were under 
no temptation to distort to the advantage of the islanders. 
But neither was he himself an eye-witness of the struggle 
he portrays. In fact, he wrote — or, more strictly speaking, 
the book was written — a hundred years after the main 
•events we are now concerned with had transpired. . 

One question remains to ask : Was Gildas an unbiassed 
witness ? It is impossible to read his pages and note his 
pervading tone of depreciation towards the Britons, and of 
eulogy and flattery towards the Romans, without feeling 
that he was not. He never lets slip an opportunity of 
heaping on his countrymen epithets of disparagement and 
reproach, and he seems willing to include the Saxons, Picts, 
and Scots, in the same category. The Britons are cowards, 
poltroons, hares and chickens, neither brave in war nor 



QILDAS EXAMINED. 225 

faithful iii times of peace ; the Saxons, clogs, wolves, a race 
hateful to God and men ; the Picts and Scots, brutes, inspired 
with avidity for blood, and " all more eager to shroud their 
villanous faces in bushy hair than cover their bodies with 
decent clothing/' But the Romans are lions and eagles, 
generous and noble friends, mighty in war, magnanimous 
in victory. 

The one-sidedness and disingenuousness of Gildas are of 
themselves sufficient to vitiate and condemn his work as a 
history. No special pleading can be history. Palpable ex- 
aggeration, strained and bitter invective, unreasoning and 
blundering partiality — main characteristics of Gildas's pro- 
duction — would disentitle any pretended annalist to credit. 

An example or two of Gildas's partiality and exaggera- 
tion will suffice. 

His picture of Britain as a Roman province belies all 
history and all probability. " The Romans having slain 
many [Britons], and retained others as slaves, that the land 
might not be entirelyreduced to desolation, left the island, 
destitute as it was of wine and oil, and returned to Italy, 
leaving behind them taskmasters to scourge the shoulders 
of the natives, to reduce their necks to the yoke, to chastise 
the crafty race, not with warlike weapons, but with rods." 
And yet we know that Britain was a favourite province, 
and a favourite abode of many emperors, a rich mine of 
wealth to numerous procurators, and a field of renown and 
glory to many of Rome's leading generals. 

On the return of the Romans to aid against the Picts 
and Scots, he uses the following pompous style of descrip- 
tion : — " Upon this the Romans, moved with compassion 
.... send forward, like eagles in their flight, their 
unexpected bands of cavalry by land, and mariners by sea, 
and planting their terrible swords on the shoulders of their 
enemies, they mow them down like leaves which fall at the 



226 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

destined period, and as a mountain torrent swelled with 
numerous streams, and bursting its banks with roaring- 
noise, with foaming crest, and }reasty wave rising to the 

stars " l But the sentence, like most, indeed, of this 

turgid author's, is too long to be fully quoted. Of the 
Britons, on the other hand, he says : — To oppose the Picts 
and Scots, " there was placed on the heights a garrison 
equally slow to fight, and ill adapted to run away, a useless 
and panic-stricken company, who slumbered away days and 
nights on their unprofitable watch. Meanwhile the hooked 
weapons of their enemies were not idle, and our wretched 
countrymen were dragged from the wall and dashed against 
the ground. But why should I say more ? They left their 
cities, abandoned the protection of the wall," &c. "The 
enemy butchered our countrymen like sheep, so that their 
habitations were like those of savage beasts, for they turned 
their arms upon each other," 2 &c. 

He calls Boadicea " that deceitful lioness," although 
history has clothed her with all the attributes of true no- 
bility and heroism. After the revolt which she headed, 
when the Romans sent their legions in vast force to avenge 
it as already described in our pages, he asserts that the 
Britons had no marshalled army, no preparations for 
resistance, but " made their backs shields against their 
vanquishers, presented their necks to their swords, and 
stretched out their hands to be bound like women, so that 
it became a proverb far and wide that the Britons are 
neither brave in w T ar nor faithful in time of peace." 3 A 
representation more mendacious was never put on record. 

He charges his countrymen with being an indolent and 
cowardly race, totally subjugated and dispersed by the 
Saxons from the outset, although he knew, or ought to have 
known, that in his own time — a century or more after their 

1 DcExcid. Brit. 17. 8 Ibid. 19. i.l. 6. 



BRITOXS MORE XUMEROUS THAN SAXOXS. 227 

asserted total overthrow — they were still in possession of 
half the island, and stubbornly maintaining, though with 
waning fortunes, the fight against the invader ! 

It is time to have done with Gildas. It is clear, that, 
allowing he was a real person, and wrote his history at the 
time commonly supposed, his statements in all matters 
pertaining to the Britons, are wholly unworthy of credence. 

He pursues them with an animosity that is never satiated, 
and belies all authentic history in branding them with the 
character of timidity, cowardice, and tame submissiveness, 
when their country was being torn from them by strangers. 

It is impossible to dignify such a chronicler by the nam^ 
of historian, and it is utterly impossible to receive his 
statements as anything else than the splenetic exaggera- 
tions of an ill-informed, and prejudiced monk. Gildas is 
therefore not mentioned by Lappenberg as an authority 
for early English history. 

And yet upon the representations of this writer has been 
based the faith of Englishmen concerning their own purely 
Teutonic descent. From him alone has proceeded the 
doctrine that the Britons were exterminated, or driven clean 
off from English soil, into "the sea," or into "the moun- 
tains of Wales." There exists no other authority whatever 
for such notions. We are compelled in deference to truth 
to reject the authority of Gildas, and pronounce the notions 
based upon it as visionary and historically " superstitious." 

Having so far cleared the way, we now proceed to con- 
sider more in detail the strength of the British population 
after the departure of the Romans. 

2. The Aboriginal Britons surpassed in number their 

Anglo-Saxon invaders. 

In almost all invasions, the aggressors an- few < mpared 
with the inhabitants. It was so in the Roman nvasion 



228 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

of Britain. It was still more so in the Norman. At the 
time when the Saxons and Angles first made a regular 
attack on the island, the inhabitants — already numerous 
even in Roman times, as proved by the large towns, and 
military and fiscal stations existing all over the country,, 
-end in our pages enumerated — with the increase which had 
since the departure of the Romans taken place, were a 
powerful and widely distributed race. In the North, in the 
South, in Wales, the population was not sparse. In all these 
parts considerable states flourished. What, therefore, com- 
pared with this wide-spread and multitudinous people, for 
the proper government and taxation of which the Romans 
had at least above a hundred towns, cities, and strongholds,, 
could the invaders, coming over in their small cheols, mis- 
called " ships," — three "ships" — five " ships," at a time, 1 
amount to ? What could they amount to, making every 
reasonable allowance for the thinly inhabited regions of 
the East, and for the hosts which had emigrated to Gaul' 
and Armorica ? The number given by Geoffrey of Mon - 
mouth (300,000) as having come over to support Hengist 
is perfectly imaginary. It is not to be supposed that the 
Saxon " ships" were to be compared in capacity to the 
Roman triremes, and yet Csesar had to build, as he himself 
declares, 700 transports to convey an army of 30,000 across 
the Channel, with baggage and all appurtenances. Sup- 
posing that the Saxon keels were actually equal to the 
Roman in capacity — it would take a fleet of some seven 
thousand such " ships" to bring an army so enormous as 
that mentioned by the imaginative and romantic Geoffrev ! 

1 Some ingenious writers have recently discovered that "three "and 
"five" are not to be understood literally, as giving the bare number of ships,, 
but figuratively, meaning three or five squadrons ! We do not find the 
Saxon Chronicle, and other such works, so very imaginative as all this 
would imply. 



THE BRITONS NUMEROUS. 229 

The creation of a fleet a tenth of the size is inconceivable 
under the circumstances. 

We readily admit, for the clear voice of the old chroniclers 
bears it out — that immense numbers of soldiers, pirates, 
miscellaneous adventurers, came over with, and after, the 
different Saxon and Anglian Chiefs. This concession is 
simply a relation of the truth. We have even given pro- 
minence to this fact in preceding pages, as the means of 
exhibiting in stronger relief the power whereby the Britons 
for so long a time maintained the contest. But the invading 
body, though large when considered absolutely, and in the 
mass, was small when held in comparison with the teeming 
thousands which inhabited the many score cities and wide 
plains of Britain. The success of the Anglo-Saxons, like 
that of the Romans before them, and that of the Normans 
against the English afterwards, was not the success of 
numbers, but of a military and brute force, superior in con- 
cert, fiercer in resolve, more practised in arms than that 
which it had to confront. 

The people who fought the Romans for so many long- 
years, not without some success, and who were afterwards 
for centuries nurtured, protected, cultivated by them ; a 
people numerous enough to yield by taxation a revenue 
sufficient to maintain the military and civil service of Rome 
in the island, and yield a surplus sufficient to enrich em- 
perors, procurators, governors, and their underling-s for three 
or four centuries, however they may have passed their lives 
in the forced indignity of subjection, cannot for a moment 
be compared with any multitudes of adventurers crossing 
the German Sea in open boats. If the objection, already 
so often answered, be still repeated : " The Anglo-Saxons 
must have been as numerous as the Britons, because thi \ 
conquered them;" we can only meet it by saying: — The 
Normans under William must have been, by parity of rea- 



230 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

soning, as numerous as the people of England, and the 
Northmen led by Rollo must have been as numerous as the 
inhabitants of Neustria — an hypothesis so absurd as to 
need no exposure. 

3. The Britons did not suffer, relatively, a diminution of 
number from war. 

The point is not whether they were not diminished, but 
whether they were more ^minished in proportion than 
their opponents. Granted* modes of warfare in those bar- 
barous times were destructive enough of human life. But 
if well-forged and sharpened weapons counted for anything" 
in the trial of battle, one would suppose that here the 
Britons would have a marked advantage. They had been 
taught the forging of blades and spear points, and the 
forming of shields and helmets, by the Romans, as well as 
all the tactics of attack and defence. However furious, 
therefore, the onsets of the terrible warriors of the North,, 
there is no reason for concluding that the brave and better- 
trained Britons, with the advantage of a better panoply,, 
would leave more men hors de combat than their enemies. 
The fierce and less regular movements of the latter, on the 
contrary, would frequently expose them to more serious 
losses. 

The most stubborn and devastating conflicts took place, 
no doubt, at the first stages of the invasions, and victory 
at that time would be followed by unsparing severity, on 
whichever side it turned. Whole towns and villages would 
be depopulated, and misery and desolation spread far and 
wide. On the other hand, it is to be borne in mind that in 
those more primitive times, when men were less hampered 
with property, and less attached to locality, the inhabitants 
of whole towns and districts would readily retire before an 
approaching foe, and find easy shelter in the forests and 



DIMINUTION OF BRITONS AND SAXONS. 23 1 

woodlands which everywhere abounded, and in the ab- 
sence of regular garrisons, soon again return to their 
homes. The Anglo-Saxons, although they never seem to 
have repaired, would, doubtless, at first, eagerly use the 
great lines of military roads constructed with so much 
labour by the Romans, conducting their attacks mainly 
along these lines, while the wide districts lying between, 
being less easily approached, would be left comparatively 
unharmed, and become places of rendezvous and shelter for 
the inhabitants. 

It may be asked how, if not by the sword, were the 
Britons so sadly decimated r The question assumes what 
we deny to be the fact. The Britons were not so sadly 
decimated. If so, it may again be asked, how, to all 
appearance, did they diminish so rapidly in number, that 
very speedily all over England we find none but Anglo- 
Saxons ? This question again assumes too much, although 
in perfect keeping with popular opinion. It so happens 
that the Britons did not " so rapidly diminish in number," 
even " to all appearance" and that we do not " very speedily 
find none but Anglo-Saxons all over England." Our 
imaginary questioner has been, to all appearance, reading 
his " School History," which often helps him to find 
Teutons where he ought to have discovered true Celts, 
and Anglo-Saxons where he ought to have found Britons. 
It is true that in process of time the Celtic language 
disappears from the Anglo-Saxon parts, and that gradually 
the population throughout the greater portion of the 
I [eptarchy, or Octarchy, or Hexarchy, as we may choose 
to call the Saxon States — for it is uncertain whether seven 
or eight States, properly independent, ever contempora- 
neously existed — assumes the appearance of a homo- 
geneous race ; but this was a result which was very slow 
in taking shape. It was, for example, far from complete 



232 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

in the time of Athelstan ; for then communities of Cymry, 
using their own language, and observing their own usages, 
were in integral existence in the heart of Wessex itself. 
This was five hundred years after the arrival of Hengist. 
In the reign of Egbert, the counties of Dorset, Somerset, 
Wilts, as well as Devon, were all considered as belonging 
to the Weal-cynne, 1 (the dominion or kingdom of the AVelsh) 
a sufficient proof of the nationality of the inhabitants. 
This was nearly four hundred years after the settlement of 
Hengist. Of course this designation, Weal-cynne, could 
only mean at that time that the inhabitants were the JVealas 
— " the foreigners" — as the Anglo-Saxons, with admirable 
audacity, termed the people, who for a thousand years had 
their home in the country — the government under which 
they lived was nominally that of Egbert, who was styled not 
merely King of Wessex, but King of England. 

The Anglo-Saxons might well multiply with rapidity 
when whole tribes or states of the Britons entered into 
"confederacy" with them and "became Saxons," 
as the Triad indignantly expresses it. Lloegrians, 
Brython, and probably many others, did this ; and the 
Britons would of course in appearance diminish in 
proportion under such a process. But this is a different 
question, and when thus settled, only tells in favour of 
the general position we adopt. If the Lloegrians, and 
their companions in ready submission, had their blood 
changed into other than Celtic blood by the method 
whereby they " became Saxons," well and good. Change 
of government — mere recognition of a new dynast}- — is all 
that is required, in that case, to convert a Jew into a 
Gentile. The Mauritanians and Celtiberians, the Syrians 
and the dwellers on the Ganges, by submission to the 

1 Will of King Alfred, pp. 14, 15. Ed. Pickering, 1S2S. Reprinted 
from the Oxford ed. of 17SS. 



BRITONS "BECAME SAXONS." 233 

prophet of Mecca, all became genuine Arabs according to 
that theory. But of the general fusion of the Celts of 
Britain and the Anglo-Saxons we have to treat in our 
next section. Our subject here is the diminution of the 
Britons, not through cession and absorption, but through 
the casualties of war. 

Making every reasonable allowance for the reductions 
made in the British inhabitants, on the one hand by poli- 
tical arrangement, and on the other by sheer destruction 
in the field, they were still a numerous and active race two 
hundred years after the founding of the first Saxon King- 
dom. Throughout the country, even in the central parts, 
as at Bedford, Banbury, Petherton, Bath, we find so late 
as A.D. 552, 584, 658, &c., mighty battles fought by the 
Britons proper of those districts, who rose to avenge the 
oppressive exactions of their conquerors. 1 If these had 
been the incursions of marauding hordes from "Wales or 
Cumbria, penetrating for the moment far into the enemy's 
•country, and retreating with their booty, their presence were 
of no value to our argument. But they were nothing" of 
the kind. They were spontaneous movements of the 
dwellers in those regions. What other commotions went 
on throughout the country from similar causes we do not 
know, or have no space to relate. But it W certain that 
the Britons were a powerful part of the people of England 
in these times, either in the form of communities still 
wearing the badges of their nationality in language, laws, 
and customs ; or as more complying subjects of the 
different Saxon states. Then it is to be remembered that 
during all this time "West Wales," or Cornwall and 
Devon, great part of Somerset, Wilts, Gloucestershire, 
Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire, Lan- 
cashire, Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and tli i 
J Sci.x. Cliron. under those dates. 



234 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

South of Scotland, as well as the whole of Wales — the 
palria intacta of the Cymry — were in the possession of 
those Britons who had hitherto kept themselves wholly un- 
mixed with the Teutons. In all this there is nothing which 
sounds like a diminution of the British race through war. 

If, therefore, the Britons were reduced in number, 
relatively to the Anglo-Saxons, it was the effect not of 
casualties of war but of absorption into the new nation- 
ality now in process of formation. At the coming of the 
Saxons, as we have shown, the Britons greatly surpassed 
them in multitude, and it necessarily follows, granting to 
each side nearly equal losses through fighting, that the 
great majority of the subjects of the so-called Anglo-Saxon 
Heptarchy were not Saxon, or any species of Germans, 
but Britons, and, through marriage of Saxon men with 
British women, half-blood Britons. Whole tribes or king- 
doms of Britons had at an early stage sent in their 
submission. Necessity, convenience, family ties, interest, 
led thousands more to remain where they were, and prepare 
for peaceful union with the iron Northmen, As the German 
warriors cannot be supposed to have brought many women 
over, a mixed breed would speedily multiply through their 
taking British wives. The Cymry alone, and only the 
more enthusiastic and unyielding of these, retired to seek 
shelter with their brethren in Wales. This section of the 
Ancient Britons from the outset protested against all deal- 
ings with the Germans ; they never ceased to criminate 
and denounce Vortigern for his first alliance with them ; 
and to the last they consistently maintained an attitude of 
protest and defiance. 1 The remaining Britons in process 

1 Thus the bard Golyddan (7th century) exclaims : 
"O, Son of Mary, whose word is sacred! woe's the time that we sprang 

not forth 
To resist the dominion of the Saxons — that we cherished them ! 
Far be the cowards of Vortigern of Gwynedd ! " 
Arymes Prydain Fawr. (See Myv. Arch, of Wales, i. p. 156.) 



THE ABORIGINES STILL IN THE LAND. 235 

of lime " became Saxons ; " and so it was that the Ancient 
Britons diminished in number, and the Saxons " mightily 
multiplied. " 

But we must now, with the greatest care and minuteness, 
search out what evidence is available upon this vital point 
in our argument. 

4. On the Extent to which the Britons remained on the 
Conquered Territory and amalgamated with their Anglo- 
Saxon Conquerors. 

The tenor of the conclusion we shall arrive at on this 
point the reader has already gathered from the preceding 
discussion. The facts there cited and the reasoning founded 
upon them, left us no alternative but to conclude, even long 
before the whole of the case was gone into, that the claims 
put in for the Britons were good. The additional evidence 
to be now presented will conduct us to the same verdict,, 
but, if possible, with an emphasis of conviction many times 
multiplied. We shall distribute the results of our researches 
under three chronological divisions, thus : [a.) from the 
first Saxon invasion to the founding of Mercia. (p.) From 
the founding of Mercia to the union under Egbert of 
Wessex. (c.) From Egbert's time forward. 



(a.) The first Saxon Invasion to the Founding of the Kingdom of 
Mercia in a.d. 5S6. 

There can be little question but that myriads of the 
Britons, as soon as the territory on which they were 
settled was taken possession of by the invaders, and some 
form of government was established, made their submission,, 
and transferred their allegiance. It is so in almost every 
instance of conquest known in history. The masses are 
not swayed so much by sentiments of nationality as b\ 



236 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

attachment to their native soil, their homes, familiar scenes, 
and the property, be it ever so little, which they, like 
greater folk, delight to call their own. Hence the ease and 
apparent indifference with which they consent to a change 
of masters. Promises of protection under better laws and 
lighter taxes, of kind masters and cheaper fare, are usually 
abundant on such occasions, and these are the things which 
in the main carry influence with the impassive multitude 
of every country. The Alsatians, since the recent con- 
quest of their district by Germany, have shown a persistent 
loyalty to France which is strangely exceptional. 

It is very true that times have been when the British 
princes had enormous influence over their followers. They 
could, by appeals to their passions and patriotism, rouse 
them to a frantic pitch of excitement, and bid them follow- 
through any perils, and at any sacrifice. But the age which 
succeeded the withdrawal of the Romans was not the time 
for such enthusiasm. The Britons were fatigued and 
exhausted. Though they made extraordinary efforts, their 
movements were like those of a person toiling under bodily 
pain and weariness. Such was their condition when they 
found their country attacked at all points by a new and 
ruthless enemy, that they would hail peace and quietness 
almost at any price. None but those who were inspired by 
the loftiest sentiments of patriotism, and the most powerful 
impulses of valour, could take the lead at such a time as 
this, and impart to the sluggishness of their wearied 
countrymen the resolve still to fight and conquer, or die. 

The Lloegrians, with Vortigern as their king and London 
as their capital, at first maintained a hot contest with the 
invaders. But it seems that their courage at last flagg'ed ; 
■they sued for peace ; enticed by the Coranians, they entered 
into confederacy with the aggressor, and " became 
Saxons." The Lloegrians were a people of the same stock 



THE ABORIGINES STILL IX THE LAND. 237 

with the Cymry, had arrived in the island at a time 
subsequent to the Cymry, and by their consent ; and from 
their Southern position, we may fairly judge that theirs 
was a third wave of immigration, following that of the 
Brython, also sprung from " the same primitive race with 
the Cymry," who had been pushed forward to the region 
above the river Humber. 1 These are said by the Triad to 
have come from Armorica. They also, since they are never 
said to have united themselves with the Cymry during the 
Saxon troubles, in all probability by degrees became, lik< ■ 
the Lloegrians andCoranians, united to the Anglo Saxons. 
It is worthy of remark that Taliesin, in his poem, Gwaw, 
Lludd Jlfawr, specifies three nations besides the Cymry 
and Saxons as inhabiting Britain in his time (6th Cent, f 
These he denominates by the very intelligible names Eingyl> 
Gwyddyl, and Prydyn — Angles, Givyddelians (or Gaels), and 
Britons, ox Brython? All these, excepting only the Cymry, 
seem to be in his time associated with the Saxons. Pos- 
sibly by the Gwyddyl he meant the borderers on Caledonia 
who had been absorbed into the kingdom of Northumbria 
along with Dcivr and Bryncich. But be this as it may, the 
intimation concerning the Prydyn, the point which here 
concerns us, is important. 

These two communities, or nations of Celts, the Lloegrians 
and the Brython, along with the inhabitants of Dcivr and 
Bryncich (Deira and Bernicia) also confessedly Celts, and 
by the Angles incorporated into the kingdom of North - 
humbra-land, would take at once the greater part of the 
Ancient Britons residing in the part of the island now 

1 In the name Ilumbcv we have several of the radical elements of 
Cimbri, Cumbri, Cymry. The hard initial consonant has been changed 
into an aspirate in Humber, probably in compounding North-I/umbu- 
huid. 

- See the poem Qwawd Lludd Mawr, in the Myv. Arch. 0/ Wales, vol. L 



.238 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

■denominated " England" out of the pale of the British race, 
and so far swell the proportions of the Anglo-Saxon popu- 
lation. Is it too much to say, that this incorporation alone 
would be so considerable as to more than double the num- 
ber of the unmixed Anglo-Saxon population ? We think 
not. 

It will not be amiss to refer for a moment to the 
intimations given in the Saxon Chronicle — next to the 
Annates Cambriae, the most reliable of all the Ancient 
Annals of Britain, and valuable in the present instance, 
and throughout this Essay, as being free from all 
favourable bias towards the Britons — as to the localities 
where the Cymry were found, and found active in battling 
for their rights, at comparatively late periods of the Saxon 
contests. In a.d. 571, it is recorded in the Chronicle that 
Cuthulf fought against the Britons, or Welsh, [Bretwealas] 
at Bedcanford, (Bedford), and took four towns — Lygeanbirg 
(Lenburg), Aegeles-birg (Aylesbury, Bucks), Baenesington 
(Benson), and Egonesham (Eynsham). Then after six years, 
A.D. 577, Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Britons 
{Brettas), and slew three kings, and took three cities, 
Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath. Again, in A.D. 584, 
Ceawlin is said to have taken " many towns, and spoils in- 
numerable." x 

Now several of the towns here mentioned were cities of 
importance under the Romans ; 2 and if now, after a hundred 
and fifty years of opposition to Saxon supremacy, the Britons 
still kept them in their own possession, the fact is significant. 
At the date last mentioned, the invaders had not succeeded 

1 Florence of Worcester says, "Much booty and many vills." Flor. is 
a mere copyist from the Sax. Chron. and Bede. 

2 Gloucester and Bath were both Colonic; and Cirencester, a privileged 
town under the Latii Jus, was a most important military post, having 
no less than six military roads meeting in it as a centre. 



THE ABORIGINES STILL IN THE LAND. 239 

in founding Mercia, but they had in a manner established 
their rule in the other six states, Northumbria, the last, 
having now existed some forty years. When Mercia was 
set up, it completely extinguished the hopes of the Britons 
beyond the Severn, and doubtless converted the mass of 
the inhabitants from the Severn to the Wash, and north- 
wards as far as the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire, 
into tolerable " Saxons." 

The simple fact that at the late period mentioned the 
Britons were in possession of the chief strongholds of 
Gloucestershire and Somerset, and in the very centre of 
England held Bedford, and four neighbouring towns — how 
many others we do not know, but four they held and lost — 
and that besides these, Ceawlin took from them " many 
towns, and spoils innumerable," is decisive evidence which 
cannot be set aside, that they were strong and numerous in 
the land, and gives fair ground for the presumption that 
they had never yet been effectually disturbed in their pos- 
sessions in these places since the time of the Romans. We 
shall by and by see that these were not the only places far 
in the interior of England which were at that period in the 
hands of the Britons. These were but a few of the many 
which they held. Others they continued in undisturbed 
possession of, even for hundreds of years after the last of 
the above dates ; but these they lost, with many others only 
obscurely hinted at in history, when the seventh kingdom 
of the .Saxons, Mercia, was established. 

Now, what became of the subjects of the " three kings,'' 
and the inhabitants of the seven towns, and " many towns," 
and of the districts surrounding them, when their conquest 
was effected ? Were all these people slain ? Did the con- 
querors so blindly mar their own fortunes as to clear tho 
fields of their cultivators, the towns of their merchants and 
traders, the workshops of their mechanics, <\c, possessing 



240 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

themselves merely of the empty shells of walled towns, and 
of desolated acres, which could neither pay tribute nor pro- 
vision an army ? We may be sure that our Saxon ancestors 
had more wit than this. Once they overpowered the war- 
rior part of the population, their policy was to obtain the 
submission and friendship of the rest, and as speedily as 
possible gain strength and profit from multiplied subjects 
and extended empire. The Britons, on their part, had the 
example of their brethren before them in yielding submis- 
sion when hopelessly overcome. All around them they 
found their own kith and kin in the condition of a subject 
race. In short, necessity left them but one alternative — 
either accept the new rule or perish. 

It was by the conversion of the former inhabitants into 
subjects that the Saxons could by any possibility make the 
territories they won into "kingdoms." They had no means 
of planting such a large tract as Mercia with new settlers, 
when, after years of ruinous conflicts, they succeeded in 
becoming its nominal masters. They wanted to be " kings 
of men," and the men must be found, for the most part, in 
the Britons they had conquered. Without this, the Saxon 
states could not, by any method conceivable to us, become 
the populous communities they appear to have been in the 
time of Egbert and Alfred. " Some writers have asserted," 
says Edmund Burke, " that except those that took refuge 
in the mountains of Wales and in Cornwall, or fled into 
Armorica, the British race was in a manner destroyed. 
What is extraordinary, we find England in a very tolerable 
state of population in less than two centuries after the first 
invasion of the Saxons. It is hard to imagine either the 
transplantation, or the increase, of that single people, to 
have been in so short a time sufficient for the settlement of 
so great an extent of country." 

The Saxon and Angle conquerors did not, anymore than 



THE ABORIGINES STILL IX THE LAND. 241 

the Romans, carry on a war of extermination. Their object 
was to obtain settlements, wealth, and rule. They had 
sagacity enough to see that a large population is a source 
of wealth and the only means of replenishing an army. 
The conversion of the Britons who, by their superior civi- 
lization and their bravery in war, gave promise of good 
materials for the erection of new states, into friends and 
obedient subjects instead of having them as formidable 
opponents, was an object worthy of the ambition of the 
noblest of the Saxon chieftains. The Britons were the de- 
positaries of all the culture which the Romans had been 
able, by more than four hundred years of example and in- 
struction, to leave behind them, while the Anglo-Saxons 
were rude and completely illiterate. If by brute force they 
-could subjugate the Britons, the fame of ruling where great 
Rome had ruled, and the advantage of inheriting all the 
treasures of refinement and learning which Rome had 
bestowed upon this its valued province, would be theirs. 
Thus interest, generous ambition, and sentiments of 
humanity, combined in sparing the lives of the natives 
wherever submission could be obtained. 



(b.) From the Founding of Mercia to the Union under Egbert of Wessex 
a.d. 586— S28. 

Our information consists frequently of mere scraps, 
mere intimations, sometimes of mere implications. The old 
chroniclers merely wrote lists ; they seldom reflected — never 
philosophized on the facts they chronicled. But the bare 
isolated, unaccounted-for f tic Is are now to us very precious, 
and at times disclose a whole world of truth respecting the 
political and social condition of England in early ages. 
Thanks, therefore, to the chroniclers. 

It is seldom that we meet with such a burst of eloquent 

R 



242 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

description as is contained in the following short passage 
of Bede's, and yet the words are more valuable to us by 
what they imply than by what they state. " At this time 
(A.D. 603), Ethelfrid, a most worthy king, and ambitious 
of glory, governed the kingdom of the Northumbrians, 
and ravaged the Britons more than all the great men of 
the English, insomuch that he might be compared to 
Saul, once king of the Israelites, excepting only this, that 
he was ignorant of the true religion: for he conquered more 
territories from the Britons, either making them tributary, ox 
driving the inhabitants clean out, and planting English in 
their places, than any other king or tribune." : 

If the redoubtable Ethelfrid gave the inhabitants the 
option of becoming tributary subjects, we may safely ga- 
ther that the other Saxon chieftains would do the same, 
and most of them even more. The tenor of the passage 
shows that making the Britons " tributary," allowing them 
to live on the land, and enjoy their own customs, was as 
much aimed at by this notorious ravager, as their expulsion. 
He was satisfied to establish his own supremacy, making 
their princes reguli under him, and receiving tribute in 
acknowledgment of subjection from the whole people. This 
being the policy of him, whom Bede afterwards describes 
as one " ravaging like a wolf," the presumption is legiti- 
mate, that the Saxon conquest, as a whole, was characterized 
by milder measures. 

Moving a few years further on, we meet with the Britons 
maintaining their rights by wage of battle in the centre of 
Oxfordshire. " Afterwards Cynegils received the kingdom 
of the West Angles, and, in conjunction with Cuichelm, he 
fought against the Britons at a place called Beaudune, and 
slew more than 2,040 of them." 2 There is no shadow of 

1 Ecclcs. Hist. i. 34. This is the Ethelfrid who is said to have 
slaughtered the monks of Bangor. 

2 Ethelwerd's Chron. ch. vi. Sax. Chron. ann. 614. 



THE ABORIGINES IX WESSEX. 243 

intimation that these Britons, whose army was so numerous 
that they left 2,040 dead on the field, were intruders. They 
were the inhabitants of the parts. This battle was fought 
a hundred and sixty-five years after the settlement of Hengist 
in Kent, when Wessex was a great power, and Mcrcia had 
been established some eight-and-twenty years. 

If we come down a little further, to the year 658, in the 
interior of the South -Western parts, a conflict is seen rag'- 
ing between the Saxon King Kenwalh, and the Britons, 
" and he drove them as far as Pedrida " (Petherton). 1 The 
host was not driven farther into its own territory than 
Petherton, in Somerset. 

It is very curious and significant that we now find a Briton 
by name on the throne of Wessex ! All know how in the 
North the great Welsh Prince Cadwalla, or Cadwallader, 
in 634 defeated Edwin of Northumbria at Hadfield. In 
685 a king of the same British name rules in Wessex. 
He was probably a person of mixed extraction, but his 
name suggests a British relationship. 

We have repeatedly noted the fact, that to a late period 
great parts of Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, &c, were inhabited 
by the Britons. We see above, that they were fighting in 
the heart of Somerset, in the middle of the 7th century. 
There will be, again, occasion to show that they were in 
these same parts at least two hundred years later than this 
date. The inference is fair that they had continued there 
throughout the interval, even occasionally putting a prince 
of there own race on the West-Saxon throne, and unless 
their expulsion was effected at some point subsequent to the 
latest period named, we must conclude that they were never 
expelled at all, but gradually merged into the English popu- 
lation of Wessex. History does not inform us of any 
extensive migration from these regions into Wales, or any 

1 Sax, Chrou. arm. 658; Ethclwerd's Chron. ch. vii. 

R 2 



244 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

other quarter. The conclusion is fair, that since extermina- 
tion was not the policy of the Anglo-Saxons, the natives 
never did migrate, but amalgamated with the ruling race. 

Egbert, who mounted the throne of Wessex, in A. D. 800, 
found the Britons numerous and troublesome throughout 
his kingdom. Their discontent, and frequent insurrections 
in territory claimed by Wessex, had been the plague of his 
predecessors. Fifty years before his accession, Cuthred had 
to make war upon them. After him, Cynewulf " fought 
very many battles" with them. Payment of tribute seems 
always distasteful to our Britons. They are in their own 
country, and " before them there were none here except 
bears, and wolves, and the oxen with the high backs ;" why, 
therefore, should they pay tribute to strangers r This was 
their favourite, conclusive argument, and this spurred them 
to incessant mutiny. Egbert made up his mind that there 
should be an end put to this grumbling, and Wessex 
should have peace from Winchester to the Land's End. 
After settling himself upon his throne, therefore he gathered, 
in the year 813, a mighty host, and set to work against 
West Wales [Weste Walas). He " harried the land" from 
east to west, i.e., from the settled parts of Wessex as far as 
he could towards Cornwall. But he failed in obtaining- 
recognition of his authority beyond that celebrated border 
stream 5 the river Tamar, a stream as often made sacred by 
the tincture of Saxon and British blood in about equal pro- 
portions (for hereabouts both parties fought till they could 
fight no longer) as any in the island of Britain. The 
British princes paid formal court to the Brefcvalda — the 
great, widely reigning King, 1 and promised some amount 

1 Mr. Kemble totally rejects the idea that the Bretwalda was a" king 
of kings," or lord-paramount over the other sovereigns of the Heptarchy. 
The fanciful derivation, Bret-wealda, " wielder of the Britons," he also 
rejects. His more rational etymology is, bryten, wide, and wealda, a 
ruler : a great, far-reaching king or governor. Hist, of Aug!. -Sax. 



ARGUMENT OF AMALGAMATION. 245 

of tribute, and there ended the matter for a time. "All 
these details of indecision and repeated struggles," says 
Palgrave, " attest the important fact, which would other- 
wise be concealed, of the strength and compactness, of the 
British population. Had they not been nearly equal to the 
English, such a stubborn resistance could never have been 
maintained." l Precisely so. 

Now, it may be asked, how proving the persistence and 
continuous power of the native race contributes to a proof 
of their amalgamation with the conquerors. The question 
is natural and to the point ; and we answer it by saying, in 
the first place, that the longer we can show the Britons to 
have endured, the higher is the probability that they were 
never as a race exterminated ; and secondly, if we can show 
that so late, say, as the eighth, or ninth, or tenth century, 
their number was still great, their language, and some of 
their institutions, still tolerated, even in the midst of some 
of the Saxon kingdoms, the presumption is made very 
strong that their ultimate disappearance was not through 
extinction but through incorporation ; at least the burden 
of proof is justly thrown upon those who maintain the 
contrary. If at the present day there existed in the midst 
of England the remains of an ancient people who contin- 
ually harassed our rulers as the Fenians of Ireland are 
doing, and with far greater effect, would not the pheno- 
menon be evidence of a state of things such as we are con- 
tending for? Or, if districts or towns were now existing in 
Warwickshire or Bedfordshire, inhabited by representatives 
of former possessors of all the surrounding territory, would 
that not be sufficient proof for most reasonable persons that 
expulsion or extermination had not been the law of the 
strongest: Again, if wholesale abandonment of the con- 
quered territory had been resorted toby the Britons, should 

1 English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 409. 



246 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

we not have some account of it in reliable authors ? From 
the eighth century forward to the Conquest we hear not a 
syllable of any migration of the Britons to other lands, any 
more than of measures adopted for their destruction. If 
they ceased to exist as " Britons," therefore, it was because 
they changed their form, and existed thenceforth as 
" Saxons." 

Of the manner in which the fallen race was sometimes 
disposed of we have a curious and instructive instance 
about the end of the seventh century. Egfrid, king of 
Northumbria, makes a grant of the district of Cartmel, 
11 with the Britons thereupon, to the See of Lindisfarne." 1 
Cartmel is in Furness, Lancashire. The inhabitants of 
Lancashire at the date of this summary and pious transac- 
tion (a.d. 685) seem therefore to have been Britons, and it 
moreover appears that when an Anglo-Saxon King ob- 
tained the power of absolute disposal of the whole body of 
the inhabitants of a district, he exercised that power, not 
by their extermination, not by their consignment to per- 
petual and degrading servitude, but by bestowh|g them as 
a holy gift upon Mother Church, thus handing them over 
to the best protection then existing, and conferring upon 
them what doubtless in that age would be deemed the 
greatest honour a subject race could receive. 

Of the number and position of the aborigines in Lan- 
cashire about this period very little is known ; nearly as 
much obscurity hangs over this great region as over the 
Eastern shores. So quiet, and perhaps so thinly peopled 
was it, that a few scattered notices of the slightest descrip- 
tion are all that is vouchsafed to it for five or six hundred 
years after the Roman occupation of it ceased. The above 
account of the donation of the Britons of Cartmel is by 

1 See Camden, Britannia, Ed. Gough, iii. 3S0 ; Palgrave, Engl. Com- 
monw. i. 436 ; Proofs and Illustr. cccxi. 



LANCASHIRE IX THE TENTH CENTURY. 24J 

far the most important of all the pieces of information 
received. The Saxon Chronicle just makes a passing" 
allusion in the year 923: "King Edward went with his 
forces to Thelwall (Cheshire), and commanded the town to 
be built, and occupied, and manned ; and commanded 
another force, also of M ercians, the while that he sat there, 
to take possession of Manchester, in Northumbria, and repair 
and man it." Manchester was nominally in Northumbria . 
but it was in a state of ruin without garrison. The fortr< 
had probably been left to crumble ever since the Romans 
occupied it. 

Thus was a district, one day destined to be the centre 
of the manufacturing and commercial world — the most 
densely peopled, most industrious, wealthiest of all parts 
of industrious England, allowed to rest as a land of soli- 
tudes and silence. The Britons scattered over it were few, 
and the soil unproductive ; so that the conquerors of 
Northumbria, though claiming jurisdiction over it, allowed 
the inhabitants to go and come pretty much as they listed, 
Xo one dreamed of the exhaustless treasures which lay 
under its moorlands. No one saw through the mists of 
the future the gathering of the peoples of all lands to par- 
take of, and multiply its wealth. For eight or nine cen- 
turies it was the most neglected by our chroniclers of all 
the counties of England. We think it may be inferred 
from this that Lancashire, and parts adjoining, were left in 
the quiet possession of the Ancient Britons, and that, 
therefore, until the late influx under the guidance of 
manufacturing enterprise, the mass of the inhabitant was 
of that race. 

The notice we shall give of the North Britons lying" 
beyond to the furthest extremities of Strathclyde, will 
more naturally fall under the next period. 

Of the condition of the native populations of the Eastern 



24S THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

parts during this period, nothing whatever is known. If 
we could venture to base a conclusion upon mere pro- 
bability, it would be that the Ancient Britons there were 
few in number, and less unmixed in blood than in other 
parts of England. 

The kind of conquest effected by Egbert over the Celts 

:'* the West of England, and of Wales, in no respect 
involved the removal of the people from the soil. All he 
; aimed at was to extort from their princes a recognition of 
his supremacy, they continuing to rule as before, but under 
him as feudatories. It was this kind of conversion which 
in time made the Britons English. But it was a long- 
process. The wars he waged were many, and extended 
ever a long series of years. Egbert's authority was at last 
acknowledged by the princes of West Wales (Cornwall),, 
and North Wales (Wales), a few years before his death. 1 
The great combination of Danes and Britons defeated at 
the battle of Hengistes-dun was the last attempt to cast off 
his authority. 2 But this work was to be done over again,. 
as we shall see, by Athelstan. The Britons had not 
diminished in number, had not left the land, had not re- 
linquished their ancient language and usages, had not been 
deprived of the government of their own princes, notwith- 
standing all the show of supremacy which Egbert had 
established. 

In fact, to suppose that the conquests of Egbert involved. 
the removal of the British race from Wessex, carries with 
it the absurdity of supposing that the rule he established 
over Wales (called by AVilliam of Malmesbury " North 
Wales ") involved their removal from Wales ; and that his 
making the Saxon-Anglian kingdoms of Mercia and 
Northumbria tributary (a.D. 82 7), involved the banishment. 

1 William of Malmesbury, ii. 1, 6. 
2 Lappenberg, Hist, of Eng. under Aug. -Sax. Kings, vol. ii. p. 5. 



UNION PROMOTED BY EGBERT. 249 

of his own race from those regions. The Britons, when 
overcome, were made tributary ; the Saxons, when over- 
come, were made tributary ; the one, like the other, remained 
undisturbed on their territories, and equally contributed to> 
build up the slowly-growing body of the great English 
nation. 

Egbert was the man who first worked out the idea of a 
fusion of the different kingdoms into one. He it was who 
capped the whole with the name "England" — 'A. -Sax. 
Engla-land). At a great Witenagemot, at Winchester, 
was this matter, by statute, accomplished. "Egbertusrex 
totius Britannia), in parliamento apud Wintoniam, mutavit 
nomen regni de consensu populi sui, et jussit illud de csetero 
vocari Angliam." l The collective name — the name of the 
island — had always been in Latin, Britannia? The Romans 
had sectionized it as already shown into five portions under 
names Brit. Prima, B. Sccunda ( Wales), Flavia Ccssariensis y , 
Maxima Ccssariensis and Valentia. Then came the different 
designations of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and the names 
the new conquerors gave the countries of the Britons — 
Wizalas, &c. The people of the Teutonic states were most 
likely called Angles, and Engliscmen — the name " Anglo- 
Saxon " having not yet come into vogue. Egbert now 
wished to remove all the old nomenclature, banish ail 
division, and call the country, whether inhabited by Saxons,. 
Angles, or Wealas — England. The Church first gave 

1 Monast. Anglican, vol. vi. p. 60S. "England" is simply a modern 
English corruption of Egbert's vernacular Engla-land, literally 

mm terra, taken from the master people. 

2 There are occasional instances in the Chroniclers where Wales 
is called by the name Britannia ; ex gr. Asser, Life of A If r. ami. 853. 

:; Ina Lege r, xxiv. The name " Saxons " has always been the favourite 
one with the Britons ; and it has usually carried with it a measure of 
reproach, like "Sassenach" with the Irish ; but this feeling is now, 
happily, nearly extinguished in Wales. 



250 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

prominence to the name of the Angli, and the usage thus 
established was consolidated in the Saxon speech, and the 
name applied to the country. 



(c.) From the death of Egbert to the Conquest, and forwards. 

Nothing occurred between the death of Egbert and the 
accession of Alfred to disturb the Britons, for other cares 
than their suppression or extermination pressed hard on 
the rulers of Wessex. The visits of the Danes became so 
frequent and desolating that self-preservation rather than 
-conquest became the first idea of the English. The Britons, 
partly aided by the Danes, became bolder, threw off the 
restraints put upon them by Egbert, and revived their 
national character in parts where it had suffered partial 
obscuration. The policy of Alfred was to conciliate and 
unite ; and he experienced the benefit of such a policy in 
finding the Britons of Somerset, &c, when he emerged 
from his temporary retirement, flocking by tens of thou- 
sands l under his standard, to fight the Danes and scatter 
them, on Eddington Hill. 

The populations named were " true Britons " — Britons 
in blood as well as in spirit. They were recognised as 
such in the language of the time. In the age of Alfred we 
all know that those regions now distributed under the 
county names of Dorset, Wilts, Somerset, Devon, were de- 
nominated in the Anglo-Saxon language, Wcat-cynne — the 
territory or dominion of the " strangers," or Britons — a 
designation which clearly shows that though the supreme 
authority might by arrangement under stress of conquest, 

1 " All the men of Somerset and the men of Wiltshire, and that por- 
tion of the men of Hampshire which was on this side of the sea [i.e. not 
in the Isle of Wight], and they were joj'ful at his presence." Sax Chron. 
ann. 878. See also Will of King Alfred, pp. 16, 17. 



FROM EGBERT TO THE CONQUEST. 25 1 

be in the hands of the Wessex King — " rex totius Britan- 
nia?" — the Britons occupied the soil and maintained vir- 
tual rule. From before the Romans they were there. 
Every hill and stream throughout the region was named 
in their language. There, owners by original settlement, 
occupiers during" Roman supremacy, owners again by 
Roman cession, from age to age they had remained, and 
there, under the guise of doers of homage, in the persons 
of their hereditary princes, to the " great king " of the 
West Saxons, they still continued. Why should they quit 
the soil of their fathers if under form of feudatorial subjec- 
tion they were invited to remain ? l True, this kind of 
arrangement for a proud and warlike race was hard to 
bear, and the most restive and daring spirits to the end 
rebelled and died, or retired to plot and create insurrection ; 
but the great majority would settle down to pursue imme- 
diate interests, reconciling themselves to an inevitable fate. 
Even as late as the reign of Athelstan, who died A.D. 940, 
or within a hundred and twenty-six years of the Norman 
conquest, Exeter, the ancient capital of the Damnonii (the 
people of Dyvn-naint) was governed \>y a compromise 
between the two races. 2 The city was divided into two parts 
— the British part and the English part, and each had equal 
power in the government of the place. It was not till this 
period that this power of the Ancient Britons, in their dis- 
tinct, unmixed character, was disturbed in Exeter. Till 
now, by law, their ancient authority was recognised by their 
conquerors as co-equal with their own. A change now 
took place. "Fiercely attacking them," says William of 
Malmesbury, he [Athelstan] obliged them to retreat from 
Exeter, which till that time they had inhabited with equal 
privileges with the Angles." :! After all that had been 

(') Comp. Kemble, Saxons in England, pp. 20, 21. 
{-) See Will. Malmesb. Hist, of Kings of Engl. ii. 3. - Ibid. ii. 6. 



252 THE PEDICtREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

accomplished by Egbert more than a century before, and: 
fixing the Tamar, fifty miles further westward, as the im- 
passable boundary, here are the Britons, under the cegis of 
Wessex law, maintaining intact their own nationality at 
Exeter, and only forfeiting their rights by the irrepressible 
passion of their race for uncontrolled liberty. From the 
Tamar to the extremity of Cornwall (the corn, or horn of 
the JVea/as, or Welsh) they still were, in effect, rulers- 
Athelstan did not here much trespass upon their right. 

But more than this is borne out by history. It shows us 
that the Britons of these parts continued to enjoy their 
pristine privileges when Wessex itself had fallen, and the 
rule of the Saxon race in England had been extinguished, 
The Norman conquest upset the dominion of the Anglo- 
Saxons for ever, and for a time paralysed the English 
speech, but on Cornwall the Conquest had but slight effect 
— on the Celtic speech of Cornwall, none at all, for that 
speech continued to live on, until, by natural death through 
absorption of the people into the English pale, it recently 
passed away. 1 

Domesday Book, that black and dismal record of acreage, 
tenements, and tax-paying human chattels, might be 
expected to afford valuable information in Celtic names of 
occupiers. But in this we are disappointed. Such was the 
rage of royal cupidity after houses, acres, " sac and soc," 
that Domesday hardly ever takes time to afford us the 
slightest glimpse at the social condition, the nationality, 
or the speech of the inhabitants. It seems on purpose to 
ignore whatever did not "pay taxes to the king." Its whole 
strength is employed either in gloating over the taxable, 
or in bemoaning the ruin which the war of conquest had 
brought upon the taxable. Things were so and so, " tem- 
pore Regis Edwardi," acres yielding so much to the king,. 
1 See Camden's Britann. Gousrh's ed. vol. i. 15. 



THE BRITONS IX DEVON. 2j$ 

tenements yielding - so much to the king - , castles yielding so 
much to the king ; but now, alas ! they are all " vastata," 
and yield neither sac nor soc. Of Exeter it is said : " In 
this city forty-eight houses have been destroyed since the 
King's arrival in England." 1 The compilers, in the hurry 
of completing inventories of all the properties in England, 
never trouble themselves with the insertion of British 
names of the chief men of the Weal-cynne and Cornwall — a 
circumstance which has emboldened some writers to assert 
that none such existed — that the British race, in fact, had 
been utterly obliterated. 

Now such a conclusion could only be arrived at from 
sheer ignorance of the history of the time, or from stubborn 
adherence to a preconceived theory in the face of facts. A 
g-ood body of evidence exists, partly detailed already in 
these pages, that in a large portion of the West of England 
in William the Conqueror's time, no language but the Welsh 
or Ancient British, commonly called Cornish, prevailed. 
The inference is inevitable that many of the Thanes and 
heads of townships enumerated in Domesday were of British 
blood and British speech. Bur it is quite conceivable that 
they had assumed Saxon names, and had learned the Saxon 
speech in addition to their vernacular ; or, perhaps, had 
Saxon names given them, in addition to the British, for 
convenience of record and other reasons. 2 

Evidence is not wanting" that, although the people of 
Devon after Athelstan's time were not under rulers of their 
own, they had still conceded them a certain amount of self- 
government by British law and custom. They possessed 
some semblance of state machinery, co-ordinate with the 
English government, though, of course, in reality not of 

1 " In hac civitate sunt vastatae 4S domus, postquam rex venit in 
Angliam." 

- See Palgrave Eng. Commoniv. 1. 240. Proofs and Musty, ccxl. iii. 



254 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

equal weight. They retained, for example, the power of 
treating with the King of Wessex respecting their peculiar 
rights, almost as if they still continued a separate inde- 
pendent kingdom. They held courts of their own, ad- 
ministering their own laws, in their own language. Compacts 
were formed between them and the English. The Witan 
of Wessex recognised the authority of the Racd-boran of 
the British as equal with its own. Each guarded the im- 
munities of its own subjects, and when disputes arose, they 
met on equal terms, through representatives of equal num- 
ber from each to discuss and arrange. 1 This, be it remem- 
bered, was the state of things just on the eve of the extinction 
of the Anglo-Saxon power through the Conquest. 2 We 
are thus brought to the first half of the nth cent. Seven 
Imndred years, therefore, after the landing of Hengist and 
Horsa, the Britons are proved to form a recognised, but 
separate, portion of the Kingdom of Wessex. 

About this time was concluded a compact between the 
"lawmen" of the two parties, whose record ends thus: 
" This is seo gerasdnisse the Angel- cynnes Witan and 
Wealh theode Raedboran betwox Deunsetan gesatten " ; 
rendered thus, in Lambard and Wiikins ; " Hoc est 
consilium quod Anglise nationis sapientes, et Wallias 
consiliarii, inter Monticolas constituerunt." Palgrave re- 
marks : " By reading Deunsetan instead of Dezmsetan, 
all difficulties [in making out the meaning of the statement] 
disappear, and we find that it is a treaty between the 
British and English inhabitants of Devon, and which 
establishes the very important fact that the Britons still 
existed as a people unmingled with their conquerors." 3 

1 These representatives were twelve in number from each side ; an 
early form, doubtless, of our modern "jury." 

2 Palgrave, Eng. Commonw. vol. i. 240. Proofs and Illustr. ccxliiL 
ccxliv. 

3 Eng. Commonw. vol. i. 240. Proofs and Illustr. ccxliv. 



THE BRITOXS IN DEVON AND CORNWALL. 255 

The race were recognised as a distinct people, but the 
tenor of this compact fully implies that at the time when 
it was formed, viz., some fifteen years before the Conquest, 
they were in Devon and Cornwall, subject to the 
dominion of the crown of Wessex. They were bound to 
render tribute. It is probable that they still enjoyed many 
of their old customs ; but they were expected to obey the 
ordinances of King Edgar in the same manner as the Eng- 
lish themselves ; and this they would find the less difficulty 
in doing since many of their own ancient laws had been 
incorporated in those of Wessex. "All these facts," 
observes Palgrave, " will afford much matter for reflection, 
and convince us of the great difficulty of penetrating" into 
the real history of nations. Read the Chroniclers, and it 
will appear as if the Britons had been entirely over- 
whelmed by the influx of the Teutonic population ; and it 
is only by painful and minute inquiry that we ascertain the 
existence of the subjugated races concealed amidst the 
invaders." 

On the whole, with regard to the Britons of " West 
Wales," it may be concluded that at the time of the Nor- 
man Conquest the river Exe rather than the Tamar was 
their boundary. From the latter stream, and probably 
from a point more western, they gradually shaded off, as 
one travelled eastward, until they assumed in Devonshire, 
Dorset, and West Somerset, the character of Englise-men. 
To the West of the Tamar they were as demonstrablv 
Celtic as the people of Wales are to-day ; and to the East 
of the Exe, in the whole of Devon, Dorset, Wilts, and 
Somerset they were as really Celtic in race, however dis- 
guised as Saxons by the adoption of the Saxon langu 
and manners, as are the inhabitants of modern Cornwall, 
or the " French " of the Cotes du Nord, or Ille et Vilainr. 

We have now to cast a glance towards the North. All 



256 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

admit that as 3^ou travel northward in a straight line from 
Gloucester to Manchester and Carlisle you pass through a 
country which was substantially Celtic in the sixth and 
seventh centuries. To the east of this line the Britons 
who were willing to pay tribute had gradually " become 
Saxons." The further west you went from the same, the 
more purely Celtic did you find the inhabitants. To show 
that the bulk of the inhabitants of the Lowlands of Scot- 
land, and of the North of England from the Scottish border 
to the Mersey, is Celtic, we need only refer to the an- 
cient kingdoms of Strathclyde and Cumbria, and the com- 
paratively recent date of their extinction. This recent 
-date is a very material as well as interesting point. We 
are not left to plead for the Celtic character of these wide 
tracts of country — forming, along with Wales and the West 
of England, fully one-fourth of Roman Britain — at some 
dim legendary period of the far past ; evidence is not 
wanting which points to comparatively recent times ; and 
to these times alone need reference here be made. If these 
states existed, whether as tributary or otherwise, until 
within a comparatively modern period, and their inhabi- 
tants were then Celtic, then the point is settled that the 
bulk of the people of those regions are in blood Celtic still 
(with greater or less admixture of Danish and Anglo- 
Saxon), unless there be some ground for believing that 
since that comparatively modern period the original 
dwellers were bodily expelled, or spontaneously quitted 
the land. But neither of these suppositions is entertained 
by any one. 

Northumbria obtained nominal supremacy over Bernicia 
(Bryneich) , as well as Deira (Deivyr) . But that supre- 
macy must have been of a very short-lived, or of a very 
superficial character — most probably both. Strathclyde 
embraced the greater part of Bernicia. It reached from 



STRATHCLYDE AND CUMBRIA. 257 

the Clyde to the Sohvay, and west and east from the Irish 
Sea to the Lothians. The kingdom of Cumbria continued 
southward from the Solway to the Mersey, including, on 
the west, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire, and 
stretching considerably to the east into Yorkshire. In this 
great region of Strathclyde (Ystrad-Clwyd) and Cumbria, 
was the chief seat of Ancient British power and culture for 
many centuries. 

Asser tells us that the " army of the pagans " (the 
Danes) in the year 875, reduced all Northumberland, and 
ravaged the Picts and Strath- Clydcnsians} Whatever may 
have been the meaning of the supremacy once obtained 
by the Angles over Bernicia, its consequence was not the 
extinction of the kingdom of Strathclyde. At Alclwyd 
Dumbarton) 2 was the chief seat of the Britons continued 
until the Danes over-ran the country. But even then, that 
ancient kingdom was not extinguished ; for it was in exist- 
ence under a recognised sovereign of its own, in the year 
924, when it is said by the Chronicler, that the king of the 
Strathclyde Britons and all the Strathclyde Britons (Strac- 
clacd IVcalas) , or Welsh, chose King Edward (the elder, 
son of Alfred), for father and for lord." 3 If it should be 
said that this only means that he became master of those 
regions, that there was actually no " kingdom " and no 
"king" in existence — it may be replied that not only 
would this be in contradiction of the plain statement of a 

1 Life of Alfred, ann. 875. 

3 Alclwyd is a purely Celtic word : W. allt, a hill or eminence, and 
clwyd, the name of the river; the hill or fortress on the Clwyd. 
'• Dumbarton" is a curious instance of the tautology as well as histori- 
cal growth of local names. The first syllable is the Celtic dun or din, 
a hill or fortress ; the second is the A. -Sax. burli or byrig, a translation 
of the Celtic dun ; the third is the A. -Sax. tun, a " town," or enclosure, 
hut slightly differing in meaning from burh. 

8 Sax. Citron, ann. 924, 

S 



258 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

recognised authority, but it would involve the absurd con- 
clusion that there was no " king of the Scots," and no 
" dwellers in Northumbria," in those days ; for all these, 
and others, are said in the same passage to have chosen 
Edward, " for father and for lord." 

To the same effect is the testimony of William of 
Malmesbury, who says, that Edward brought under all the 
Britons who were called Wallenses ; " Brittones omnes, 
quos nos Wallenses dicimus, bellis profligatos, suse ditioni 
subegit." l And Ethelred, in proof of Edward's goodness 
and influence, tells us that he induced " the Scots, the 
Cumbri, the Wallenses, &c, to choose him, not so much as 
lord and king, as father." 2 This certainly looks as if they 
were still in existence as distinct states. 

The affection which prompted this choice of Edward 
seems, however, to have been but a very slight and momen- 
tary passion, for before Athelstan's reign, we see them 
again turning recalcitrant towards the English. Athelstan's 
forces, commanded by himself and his brother Edmund, 
regained their allegiance, without their affection, by the 
memorable victory of Brunanburh, gained over the com- 
bined armies of the Scots, Strathclydians, Cumbrians, and 
Danes. 

" These mighty smiths of war 
O'ercame the Welsh (Wealas) : 
Most valiant earls were they, 
And gained the land." 3 

Owen (Eugenius) was the name of the prince of Strathclyde 
in this great contest. 

A few years after this the brave Cumbrians furbished 

1 Lib. ii. c. 5. 

2 "Bum, non tarn in dominum et regem, quam in patrem, cum omni 
devotione eligerunt." Ethelr. Rievall. de Gcncal. Regum, p. 356. 

3 Sax. Chron. ann. 937. 



CUMBRIA JOINED TO SCOTLAND. 259 

their swords anew, and took the field in concert with the 
Danes. This time Owen's son Donald (Dyftiwal) was their 
leader ; and once more were they destined to be subdued 
by Edmund, 1 brother of Athelstan. Edmund, now himself 
king, hands over his authority over Cumbria to Malcolm I., 
king of Scotland, on condition that he should assist the 
English by sea against all comers. 2 In this compact 
it was arranged that Cumbria should be governed 
not by the Scottish king, but by his son and suc- 
cessor [Tanaist)? In the time of Canute, Duncan was 
the ruler of Cumbria. The Danes' authority was 
resisted by the Cumbrians, but they were quelled. 
Duncan ascended the Scottish throne A.D. 1033, and his 
son, Malcolm III., according to the arrangement just noted, 
became the regulus of Cumbria. Some twenty years only 
before the Norman Conquest, Cumbria was, by Edward the 
Confessor, vested in the Scottish king. 

It was at this late date that all their territories, with 
their numerous inhabitants, were thus cut off from the 
stock of more southern Celts, and made to appear as if 
they belonged to a more northern race. The " Picts and 
Scots" are now seen melting into the one name, "Scots," 
and the country to the north of the wall of Severus is 
henceforth called " Scotland." 

But although a united " Scottish " government is thus 

1 Sax. Citron, ann. 945. To this same contest probably reference is 
made in the Brut : " Ystrat Chit adiffcithwyt y gany Saeson." Strath- 
clyde was devastated by the Saxons. Brut y Tywysogion, ann. 944. 

2 Sax. Cliron. ann. 945. Owing to this arrangement, Dyfnwal (Donald, 
Dunwallon) is deposed, and is said by some authorities to have gone to 
Rome. " Ac ydaeth Dwnwallawn brenhin Ystrad Clut y Rufein." And 
Dunwallon, King of Strathclyde, went to Rome. Brut y Tywysogi , 
ann. 974. 

:I W.tan, under, below; eistedd, to sit: one who occupies the next 
seat of authority. 

S 2 



260 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

established, the older designations of the people are not 
all at once forgotten. In the old " Brut of the Princes " it 
is recorded that " Malcolm, son of Dwnchath, king of the 
Picts and Albanians, and Edward, his son, were killed by 
the French." 1 This was Malcolm III. (Canmore), called 
king of " Scotland " in the public records. The people, 
both " Picts " and " Albanians," were still the same — all. 
the difference effected was a difference of government. 
The stone was only put in a new setting. 

We find passing references to the old race of Strathclyde, 
under the name "Picts," at a still later period than the 
above. John of Hexham, and Henry of Huntingdon, both 
mention them. They fought against Stephen in the battle 
of Clitheroe, and in the battle of "the Standard," in the 
year 1138. 2 The fight at Clitheroe was contested on the 
Scottish side by " Scots and Picts " against the English. 3 
" The Scots, therefore, and the Picts, scarcely held on from 
the beginning to the third hour of the conflict," &C.' 1 

From these historical notices it is evident that Strath- 
clyde maintained its independence, or at least its form as a 
government either independent or tributary, much longer 
than the more southern Cumbria. This country of the 
Ancient Brigantes suffered more, perhaps, than any other 
district long maintaining Celtic rule, from attacks both 
from cognate and from alien despoilers. It was frequently 
set upon by the Strathclydians. Northumbrian Angles 
were continually ravaging it. It was seldom free from 
Danish incursions. The Anglo-Saxons from the South,. 

1 Brut y Tywysogion, pp. 55, 57. 

2 Sax. Citron, ann. 1138. 

3 "Hoc bellum factum est apud Clithero inter Anglos, Pictos, et 
Scotos," &c. J oh ann. Hagust. p. 260. 

1 Ibid. p. 261. " Scoti itaque et Picti vix a prima hora initi conflictus 
usque ad tertiam perstiterunt." 



CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND. 26 1 

the Scots from the North, in later ages, made it their prey. 
So reduced at last was Cumbria, that when "William the 
Norman came to take his inventory in Domesday, he 
" found it not in his heart " to exhaust it further, but 
remitted all its taxes. The population had evidently 
become thin and impoverished — for nothing else could 
have mollified the heart of William — and it took long ages 
to repair the desolations which had been wrought. Great 
numbers of the Cumbri had retired into Wales after the 
disastrous battle of Cattraeth. Their places had been partly 
filled by Pictish incursions from Strathclyde, and by 
Danish settlers who had arrived by the Irish sea, and the 
traces of these are discoverable in the local names of Cum- 
berland and Westmoreland to this day. 1 

At the same time we are far from admitting that any 
such displacement of the Ancient British element had 
taken place as rendered the ancestry of the present inhabi- 
tants less Celtic than Teuton. Far otherwise ; sparse as 
the population might be, the bulk of it was Celtic. The 
traditions, superstitions, dialectic peculiarities of the coun- 
try prove this ; as do also the general character, tempera- 
ment and complexion of the people. 

From this survey of the extreme North of England on 
the Western side, including the Lowlands of Scotland, there 
need be no hesitation felt in asserting that the Ancient 
British population were never dislodged from their native 
soil. Where the Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans 
found them, there they left them. Partial dislodgment, 
doubtless, took place, as will always occur amid great 

1 The mountains bear names imposed by the various races mentioned, 
.as: Scaw Fell (Dan.) ; Bow Fell (Dan.) ; High Pike (Celt.) ; Black Comb 
(Celt,); Saddle-back (Sax.) ; Dent Hill (Celt.). So of rivers: Derwent 
.(Celt.) ; Esk (Celt.) ; Sark (Dan.) ; Cambtck (Celto-Sax.— W. Cam, 

crooked; Sax. beck, a brook); Duddon (Celt.); Croglin (Celt.) ; Nent 
.(Celt). Few streams bear other than Celtic names. 



262 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

commotions and conflicts of nations ; but no such dislodg- 
ment is witnessed to by history, and no such wholesale 
immigration of foreign races, as would entitle the historian 
of this day to conclude that the race-character of the in- 
habitants had been changed. 

If we retrace our steps southward, we shall everywhere 
find on the line of our present survey, traces of the Ancient 
British population at recent dates. 

In the latter half of the eighth century, Shrewsbury, then 
called Pengwern, was the capital of the Kings of Powis : 
and Offa gave proof to succeeding ages how great was the 
difficulty of confining the Cymry of North Wales within 
limits by the construction of his stupendous " dyke." l 
That great earthwork, Clawdd Offa, measuring a hundred 
miles long from the mouth of the Dee to the Bristol Chan- 
nel, is an abiding memorial of the terrible power of the 
Britons, and the unfailing resolution of the brave old Mer- 
cian king. In those rude times rude strength was occa- 
sionally manifested on a magnificent scale ; and this is an 
instance of it. The modern soldier would pronounce the 
building of a huge rampart a hundred miles long, from sea 
to sea, a clumsy and unmilitary method of checking an 
invader ; but we must bear in mind that Offa had the ex- 
ample of the Romans before him, and that they had been 
able, with all their strategy, to discover no better method 
of hemming in the uncontrollable Caledonians than build- 
ing great earthworks and walls across the country. Neither 
Offa nor the Romans had heard of the grandest erection 
of the kind (in existence probably even then) the wall of 
China ! The plan was adopted in Britain as an exceptional 
expedient to meet an exceptional case of peril. 

As to Herefordshire, not only is the staple of its popula- 

1 See Lappenberg, Anglo-Saxon Kings, vol. i. 231. 



SHROPSHIRE AND HEREFORDSHIRE. 263 

tion known to be purely Celtic, but it continued to a very- 
late period to associate itself with the Cymry of Wales in 
uncompromising opposition to the Saxon kings. In the 
twelfth century (temp. Henry II.) Hereford city was con- 
sidered as " in Wales," although it had been the chief city 
of Mercia in the reign of Offa. Part of the county was 
assigned to the Welsh by Offa's dyke ; and it continued as 
one of the regions of the " Marches " l — indeed, the region, 
par excellence, of the " Marches," for it gave the name of 
"Earl of March" to Mortimer 2 — to be the general boun- 
dary-land " between the English and the Welsh, allowed 
as such to belong partly to both — for many ages after the 
kingdom of Mercia had been swallowed up in the general 
dominions of the English kings. All this implies an inti- 
macy and sympathy between the Cymry and the inhabitants 
of these parts which could arise from no other cause than 
identity of race. 

But it is needless to multiply facts to prove a point so 
generally admitted. Not only will no one who has pondered 
the early ethnography of England, deny that the people 
of Herefordshire were genuine Celts, but he will freely 
grant that the inhabitants of Worcestershire and Gloucester- 
shire also were almost entirely of the same race. He finds 
no account of extensive displacement. He hears nothing 
of a Saxon population transported from other regions, and 
located in these. The country is found always peopled, 
apparently by the same race, whether the name it bears is 
Maxima Cczsaricmis, imposed by the Romans, Myrcnarzce, 
or Mercia, in Anglo-Saxon times, or the more familiar 

1 Anglo-Sax. Mearc, a mark ; hence a boundary-line, border, separating 
different kingdoms. The kingdom of Mercia itself had its name from its 
being the mearc or boundary region between the Britons of Wales and 
the East Angles. 

- His chief residence was Wigmore Castle, in Herefordshire. 



264 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

county designations of the present day. Different kings 
of different races rule, different laws and different languages 
prevail ; but the people are immortal, conveying down from 
age to age the blood of the same British race (with more or 
less Teutonic admixtures), and continuing still, in their 
physiological characteristics, manners and customs, super- 
stitions, dialects, to form a Myrcna-rice, a border kingdom, 
between the purer Celts of Wales and the Celto-Saxons of 
England further East. 

Of Monmouthshire we need not speak. It was certainly 
from no considerations of race that this county, so late as 
the eighth Henry, was numbered with the counties of 
England. To this day a very large proportion of its 
inhabitants even retain the Welsh language ; and the 
whole, with the exception, of course, of the immigrant 
element which the rapidly-developed trade and manu- 
factures of the county have attracted — are of Celtic blood. 

We have now completed the survey we intended 
making. We have seen in the early stages of the 
Saxon conquest, whole populations, tribes, or kingdoms, 
in the South, and in the Central, and North-Eastern parts 
— Lloegrians, Brython, the men of Galedin, the Gwydde- 
lians, and the Coranians — pass away, and melt almost 
simultaneously into the mass of the Anglo-Saxon people. 
In the South -West the great kingdom of Wessex has by 
degrees stretched forth its long arms, and gathered into its 
embrace the Britons of the South coast counties of Hants 
and Dorset, along with those further North in Somerset 
and Wilts, casting its spell with more or less power over 
the dwellers in Devon, and far into Cornwall. The primary 
Celtic colours have slowly mingled with the complementary 
Teutonic hues, forming at last a settled mid colour, but 
fringing off at all the extreme points in the bright 



CHANGE OF SPEECH NOT A CHANGE OF RACE. 265 

unequivocal " red-dragon " Celtic. In the extreme North, 
Strathclyde and Cumbria, large and powerful Celtic king- 
doms, covering nearly, if not fully, one-fourth of the 
surface of Roman Britain, eventually disappear, drawn 
into the all-absorbing Maelstrom of a now English-speaking 
race. The same sort of change is seen progressing in the 
intervening space along the border lands ol the " Marches " 
— Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, 
Gloucestershire, and Worcestershire. Thus, in the course 
of 600 or 700 years, more than half the face of our island 
(omitting Wales and Scotland) is plainly seen with the 
"naked eye" of history, without telescopic or micro- 
scopic aid of conjecture, assumption, or myth, to pass by 
slow but appreciable gradations from a Celtic into the out- 
ward seeming of a Teutonic territory. In a word, nothing 
more, nothing less, can be said of the teeming multitudes 
of Ancient Britons once inhabiting the parts referred to, 
than was intimated by the gth Triad of the Lloegrians — 
viz., that they "became Saxons ;" and nothing more can 
be said of the agency of the Germanic and Scandinavian 
race in bringing this to pass than what is ascribed by the 
Chronicle to the Normans, in a particular case — viz., that 
they reduced all, small and great, to be Saxons. 1 

What proportion of Ancient British blood is indicated by 
this picture as having passed into the ancestry of the 
present English, we shall not seek precisely to determine. 
It, however, immeasurably surpasses in copiousness any- 
thing that has ever yet been acknowledged by our histo- 
rians. Of the immense preponderance of the Britons over 

1 Brut y Tywysogion. Rolls office ed. by Rev. J. Williams, Ab 
Ithcl, p. 63. This was, however, a very superficial mode of making 
Celts into " Saxons." It is applied to the conquest of the Isle of 
Anglesea, whose inhabitants have never displayed many signs of 
being " Saxons." 



266 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

their Saxon and Angle conquerors during the first stages 
of the Conquest, few sane persons can have a doubt. That 
they did not continue to maintain this preponderance, has 
never yet been proved. That they gradually dwindled 
away in the character and outward expression of Britons,, 
over the greater part of the island, is clear ; and the causes 
and manner of the change have just been explained. But 
that this kind of change is tantamount to extinction of 
race elements, no person of ordinary capacity will pretend 
to believe. If that were true, the English-speaking sub- 
jects of the English crown in Scotland and Ireland would 
no longer be Celtic in blood, but Saxon. The radical un- 
soundness of the idea is seen from its liableness to be so 
easily reduced ad dbsurdum. , 

But the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles, of earlier or later 
immigrations, are not to be considered as the only factors 
along with the Ancient Britons in determining the ethno- 
logical character of the English people. The Danes and 
Normans are also to be taken into the account. 



SECTION VIII. 

Influence of the Danish and Norman Invasions on the 
Ethnological Character of the English People. 

In speaking of the English or Anglo-Saxon nation from 
this time forward, it must not be forgotten that they were 
no longer a Teutonic, but a mixed race. When the Danish 
and Norman conquests were effected, the process of amal- 
gamation with the ancient Britons had far advanced, 
although still, especially in the time of the former, far 
from being completed. 



ETHNICAL INFLUENCE OF THE DANES. 267 

1. The Danish invasion in its influence on the distribu- 
tion and admixture of race. 

The distribution or location of races in the British Isles 
had been pretty well completed before the settlement of 
the Danish rule. For many ages prior to this, and even 
prior to the Saxon and Anglian Kingdoms themselves, the 
country had been afflicted by Danish invasions on a larger 
or smaller scale ; and Danish settlements in great number 
had been effected on our coasts. But neither the earlier 
nor the later Danish incursions materially affected the 
boundaries of the Cymry of Wales and Cornwall ; although 
in Cumbria and Strathclyde they may have had some 
effect. The Norman conquest having occurred still later, 
not only effected much less by way of race intermixture 
than the Danish, but in the way of race distribution pro- 
duced hardly any change. All that these conquests can 
be held to have done, therefore, in this relation, is the 
effacing still further the already obscured signs of Celtic 
nationality on the western border of England, the dis- 
placement of a portion of the Britons of Cumbria, and the 
confining of the uncompromising Cymry more strictly 
within the limits of Wales, and " West Wales," or Corn- 
wall. During neither of these conquests were large masses 
of Britons, except those who came with the conquerors, 
brought into a state of fusion with the English ; nor were 
any portions of Wales proper annexed to the English 
sovereignty. 

What the Saxon Chronicler relates of the work of 
Edmund in ravaging Strathclyde in a.d. 945, and granting 
it to Malcolm, King of the Scots, on condition of his 
becoming a fellow-worker with him, "by sea and by 
land," we have already shown. Malcolm, was, of course,, 
to become a fellow-worker " by sea," emphatically for the 
purpose of checking the Danes. 



.268 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

The Danes, pressing especially on the Eastern coast, by 
degrees became masters of Northumbria, Mercia, and East 
Anglia. We have shown that they indeed swarmed in 
prodigious numbers on all parts of the coast of Britain, 
•coming at one time in " three hundred ships," and 
numbering at another time as many as 30,000 men. 
Alfred, with all his extraordinary exertions, was com- 
pletely unable to expel them from the Southern parts of 
the island. He therefore adopted the wise policy of paving 
the way, since they were known to be essentially of the 
same race with the Anglo-Saxons, for their gradual fusion 
with the inhabitants. He accordingly arranged for their 
peaceful settlement in the country, ceded to them, under 
conditions, the Kingdom of East Anglia, and laboured to 
the extent of his power to promote a good understanding 
between them and their Anglo-Saxon opponents. By this 
time they had obtained power over nearly two-thirds of the 
territories of the Heptarchy. This they had accomplished 
through a series of conflicts as bloody and disastrous as 
any which the history of this much-enduring land has ever 
-chronicled. 

It has been stated by some writers (incorrectly, we 
venture to think), that the Danes about the time when 
their horrid massacre was planned by Ethelred, A.D. 1002, 
numbered nearly one-third of the inhabitants of England. 
•One-sixth would probably be nearer the truth, and even 
that proportion was diminished by the atrocious deed 
referred to. It was, however, more than restored soon 
afterwards by the avenging invasions of Sweyn, Thurchil, 
Knut (Canute), and other great commanders, with their 
teeming hosts. Under Canute, who in A.D. 101 7 became 
sole monarch of England, perhaps the Danish element 
may, without exaggeration, be said to have constituted 
nearly one-fifth of the population — the Anglo-Saxons, 



INFLUENCE OF THE DANES IN THE NORTH. 260 

including the Saxonized Britons, furnishing the remaining 
four- fifths. The Danish element held the highest place in 
East Anglia, and the Eastern side of the island throughout, 
to the extreme of Northumbria. 

The British kingdom of Cumberland was inundated in 
the latter part of the tenth century by the Norwegians, who 
found their way thither by the Irish Sea — a sea well known 
to the Northmen from times much earlier ; for it was the 
route they pursued on their way to France. The kingdom 
of Strathclyde having by this time been annexed to the 
dominions of the Scottish king, it is probable that the in- 
cursions of these new Norwegian hordes affected chiefly 
Southern and South-Western Cumbria, still inhabited by 
the comparatively unmixed Welsh-speaking Celts ; l and 
that numbers of these were forced to flee the country, and 
seek a home among their brethren in Wales. The Nor- 
wegian immigration was so large that it gave a Scandi- 
navian tinge to the region now included in the counties of 
Cumberland and Westmoreland, visible, as we have shown, 
to this day in the local names of the district ; and con- 
tributed to hasten the entire extinction of the Cymraeg of 
the region. 2 

We must guard, however, against the supposition that 
the displacement of the original population was on any 
large scale. The Celts and Saxons, and even Danes 
throughout Northumbria, had doubtless largely intermixed 
before the arrival of these new comers, giving room for 
the probable conjecture that those alone would be com- 
pelled to evacuate the country whose attachment to the 

1 The language of Cumbria is proved to be identical with the Welsh 
by the literary remains of the Cumbrian bards, Aneurin and Llywarch 
Hen, and by dialectic words and local names. 

: See Ferguson's Northmen in Cunib. and Westm. ; and Worsuac's 
Danes and Norwegians in England, passim. 



2JO THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

ancient speech and usages was too stubborn to bend, and 
who, therefore, scorning to coalesce with the hated North- 
men, retired into Wales. 

Whatever may be the truth as to the Scandinavian ad- 
mixture in Cumbria, it is on all hands admitted that the 
North of England was more affected by it than the South. 
But, of course, no amount of intermixture with Danes or 
Norwegians could affect the race quality of the Anglo- 
Saxons, supposing for the moment that the Anglo-Saxons 
existed now in their unmixed integrity in the land, for Ave 
all know that Danes, Norwegians, Angles, and Saxons, 
were of the same Teutonic race. Under the actual circum- 
stances, the people of England at the time being a com- 
pound of Celts and Teutons, the effect of receiving into 
their body a quantum of Danes and Norwegians would 
simply be the increasing of the proportion of Teutonic as 
compared with Celtic blood in the mass. It cannot be 
denied that the Danish invasion and conquest did operate 
in this manner. The Norman conquest, as will by-and-by 
be shown, contrary to the traditional faith prevailing, had 
hardly a preponderating effect in favour of Teutonism. 

When endeavouring to gauge the influence of the Danes 
on English ethnology two related but antithetic ideas 
occur to the inquirer. The rule of the Danes in England 
was brief; but the era of Danish incursions was long. 
They held sovereignty in this country only for some eight 
•and twenty years — A.D. 1013 — 1 041, i.e., from the accession 
of Sweyn to the death of Hardicanute. But ever since the 
year 787, when they first made serious attempts upon the 
country, they never ceased to pour in accessions, more or 
less numerous, to the Teutonic population. Dr. Donaldson 
is therefore probably in error when denying that the 
Danish and Norman "settlements produced any con- 
siderable effect on the ethnical characteristics of the 



ETHNICAL EFFECTS OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 2 7 I 

country." l In the sense of adding a new element of race, 
they, it is true, effected nothing ; but in the sense of alter- 
ing the relative proportions between the Celtic and 
Teutonic elements they did something", and that something 
was in augmentation of the Teutonic, and the production 
of the Dane rather than the Norman. 

2. The effect of the Norman Conquest on the ethnical 
character of the English people. - 

Though we are accustomed to look upon the Normans 
as a new people, distinct from the Saxons and the Danes, 
it must be now kept in mind that they were so in reality, 
as far as they were Normans, only as arriving in Britain 
at a later time and from a different direction, and swayed 
by opposite interests. As the Danes were brethren — 
though not loving — to the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, so 
were the old pure Normans brethren, or rather sons — 
though neither loving nor filial — to the Danes. The 
Northmen, or Danes, who had for ages been the plague of 
Britons and Anglo-Saxons, and bore rule in the country 
when William demanded the crown, were the same people, 
ethnically, who had in the early part of the 10th century 
entered France under Rollo, and converted Neustria into 
Normandie. Rollo had recognised the Danes in England 
as brethren in race before his descent upon France, for we 
remember that he had come over to assist Guthrum the 
Dane in conquering East Anglia. Having, years after 
this, succeeded in establishing himself and a horde of fol- 
lowers, in Neustria, to which he gave the name Nbrmandze, 
because he had converted it into an abode of the ''men 

1 On English Ethnogvaphy, Camb. Essays, 1856. /'. 53. 

- Portions of this section are reproduced from a paper read by the 
author before the British Association at Brighton, 1873, and before the 
Ethnological Society of London. 



272 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

of the North," he began to create a race which, under 
the name Normans, were in reality not so. He at once 
adopted the language of the conquered territory, and 
proceeded to knead into one the Celtic inhabitants 
and the colonists he had introduced. The work of 
amalgamation proceeded ; Rollo extended and con- 
solidated his sway ; the Normans became quite as much 
Celts as the Celts became Normans ; the population grew ; 
a feeling of kindred also prevailed between the old inhabi- 
tants of Normandy and those of Brittany — for originally 
they were the same Celtic race — in great measure, indeed, 
actual contributions to that race, as shall again be shown, 
from the insular Britons; and after some 150 years of 
advancement in the arts of civilization under French 
culture, these Celto-Normans come over under William to 
achieve the Conquest of England. 

If this representation is a correct one, it will follow that 
the " Normans ■ who conquered England were only in a 
very qualified sense descendants of the old Scandinavians. 
This representation we claim as substantially correct. It 
is supported by history, and contradicted by neither history 
nor fable. It is contradicted only by the " School 
Histories of England," and popular ignorance, 

Even if it were true — which it is not — that the followers 
of William the Conqueror were in the main, or entirely, 
pure Normans, the ethnological revolution they would 
effect in England would still be very insignificant. In 
their application to the Norman conquest, under this view 
of it, the words of Dr. Donaldson are true : " The Scandi- 
navian settlers were rather chieftains and soldiers des- 
potically established in certain districts, than bodies of 
emigrants who affected the whole texture of the popula- 
tion." As already observed, the Danes through a long- 
series of years had been pouring in their hordes, and 



THE "NORMANS" NOT ALL NORTHMEN. 273 

lighting for themselves settlements in different parts of the 
island ; but the " Normans " under William came as a body 
of " chieftains and soldiers," and accomplished their great 
exploit all at once through sheer superiority in one battle- 
field. The battle of Hastings, the first they fought, was 
also the last before their supremacy was a fail '■ accompli, for 
what fighting followed was only in settlement and defence 
of that supremacy, against the contumacy of different 
sections of the country. The whole of the fighting from 
first to last was done in four years. By 1071 the whole of 
England, from Cornwall to the Tweed, and from the 
Eastern borders of Wales to the German Sea, was the prize 
— the blood-stained prize— of the Northmen's valour ! The 
wars with the Welsh only serve to prove the vitality — the 
unextinguishable spirit — which animated that people. No 
change was produced in their location — none to speak of 
in their ethnical character. 

We have said that William's followers were not pure 
Northmen ; and also that even if they had been such, they 
had only produced a faint change in the ethnical character 
of the English people, by reason of their comparative 
fewness. We have already intimated that the people of 
Normandy, from systematic amalgamation of the natives 
with the conquerors, were a highly mixed race. That the 
race inhabiting the old district of Neustria were in the 
main Celts, we need not stay long to prove, for few 
will deny it ; that the amalgamation took place is the 
unambiguous testimony of history, and its truth is, at 
least, corroborated by the significant fact that the language 
of the natives became the sole language of the com- 
pound people. We have throughout rejected the doctrine 
that the adoption of a language is proof of prepon- 
derance of number on the side of those whose ver- 
nacular it was; and \vc reject it here. But be the 

T 



274 rHE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

number of the natives of Neustria great or small, it is 
clear that they were all taken, as they were found on the 
land, as subjects of the conquerors, and that in course of 
time a complete fusion took place between the two peoples. 

But we must here more closely enquire into the race 
elements of the regions whence the so-called " Norman " 
conquerors of England were derived. 

To determine this matter we must cast a glance at those 
regions as they were settled before the North-men had a 
place as a ruling" community in France — and then at the 
nature of the Norman conquest of Rouen and the sur- 
rounding country, the nucleus of Normandy, estimating, as 
far as we can, the amount of northern blood introduced into 
the region afterwards so called. It will soon appear that 
the name was no faithful exponent of the race, any more 
than the name of France is of the nationality of that 
country. This region was a part of that territory 
which, as Caesar tells us, was inhabited by the Galli 
— a people usually considered more purely Celtic than the 
Belgse of the North-east, more Celtic, therefore, than the 
Cymri and Britons, and divided by a still wider line from 
the Aquitani or Iberi of the south-west. It was possessed 
of a large number of towns and a considerable population, 
divided into several tribes or clans. On the breaking up 
of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, Clovis, or 
Chlodwig (a.d. 486), the head of a Teutonic tribe, and of 
the family of Merowig, which occupied a tract of country 
between the Rhine and the Somme, pushing- his way 
westward, became master of the Galli as far as the eastern 
limits of Armorica. It would seem from the best authori- 
ties that the conquest effected by Clovis and the hordes 
which followed him under the name of " Frank-manni," or 
" freemen," was comparatively without bloodshed. They 
met with strenuous opposition in the eastern parts, the 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 275 

territory of the Belga? ; but on reaching Rheims, Clovis 
became a Christian, and of the orthodox Roman Church ; 
and henceforward his progress, as argued by Thierry, was 
a matter of diplomatic arrangement through the bishops, 
the customary mediators between the Roman Emperor 
and the provincials. From the Somme to the borders of 
Brittany the Franks were admitted as masters almost 
without opposition ; in fact the people who had been ruled 
by the Romans wanted masters. The change was simply 
a change of rulers, with the addition of some Germanic 
rules respecting the relation of classes and the occupation 
of land. The masters w r ere alone Frank-manni, all others 
being in a state of more or less subjection or bondage. 
The title " Franks " was thus for a long time applied as a 
social rather than an ethnological designation, until at last 
it lost its specific meaning, and settled down as a national 
and geographical term. The new sovereignty thus set up 
by the Frank-manni extended from Antwerp to Renncs. 
and from Calais to Nevers. 

What is worthy of especial notice in this new occupation 
is the fact that it reduced but by a very small number the 
native Gallic population, and added but a very small 
proportion of Frankish immigrants. The district occupied 
was large : the Merovingian tribe, though terrible in war- 
like power, was small. The parts subsequently embraced 
under the name Normandy w T ere the most distant westward, 
and the last and easiest brought under rule, so that here 
the disturbance was smallest and the influx of alien 
blood least. M. Guizot notifies a striking differ. u< ■ 
between the Neustrian Franks and their brethren of the 
Osfcr-rike, or Austrasian kingdom on the Rhine, in thai 
the latter were far more dense and compact than 1 in- 
former. The Neustrian Franks had, indeed, taken pos- 
session of so wide a territory that they were obliged 

T 2 



2 7 6 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

to spread themselves sparsely over the underlying native- 
race. 

This was the first Frankish conquest of the region. In 
about 300 years another followed. This was brought 
about by that more concentrated and more intensely 
Germanic family of Franks which held the Austrasian 
kingdom. In the 8th century, when the earlier Franks- 
and the natives had well-nigh forgotten their separate 
origin and were nearly fused into one people, Pepin and 
his son Charlemagne overran the whole country, and 
established a new Frankish dynasty — the Carlovingiam 
The change now introduced, though not accompanied by 
greater violence, was far more radical and disturbing than 
the former. A large proportion of strangers was thrust in, 
the old social system was more disintegrated. But the 
language, religion, and manners which Rome had given 
Gaul were not dislodged. And as Charlemagne aspired to 
create an empire even transcending in glory the Roman, 
he pursued a policy similar to that of the Romans in his 
humane treatment of the subjug-ated. In fact the new 
order of things was greatly in favour of the natives. Of 
the conquest by Pepin, M. Guizot says: "Never was a 
revolution accomplished more easily and noiselessly. 
Pepin possessed the power ; the fact was converted into 
right ; neither resistance nor protest of sufficient weig-ht to- 
leave a trace in history was offered. Everything seemed 
to remain the same ; nothing was changed except a title. 
Yet it is certain that a grand event had happened — that 
the change marked the end of a particular social state and 
the beginning of another, a veritable epoch in the history 
of civilization in France." 

In this second Frankish conquest, therefore, as in the 
first, no attempt was made to dislodge the inhabitants. 
The high places of society were occupied by the ruling 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 277 

Franks ; but the next lower strata, and especially the 
multitude below, continued what they had always been — 
substantially Gallic or Celtic. 

We may mention, in passing, that after the death of 
Charlemagne and the dismemberment of his empire, during 
a period of anarchy and confusion scarcely equalled in the 
history of civilized nations, and mainly through the power 
of feudalism, several dukedoms or countships were set 
up, which virtually were independent sovereignties, 
although doing nominal homage to the King of what was 
now called France. Brittany had always preserved a kind 
of independent existence ; but now arose, one after another, 
the countships or dukedoms of Anjou, Poitou, Maine, 
Guienne, Burgundy, Champagne, Provence, &c., to define 
and synchronize which has always proved an impossible 
task to French historians. This was in fact the period 
when feudalism grew into full stature, and spread with 
mysterious rapidity over all Europe. With several of these 
sovereignties William the Bastard had intimate relations, 
of which he availed himself to the full in raising his army 
of invasion. 

It was at this time of confusion, when the kingdom of 
France proper was in its weakness, and every feudal lord 
was carving out a petty kingdom for himself, that the 
Norman Rollo, with a troop of followers, made a descent 
upon Neustria. It will be well at once to mark and 
estimate the volume of race-intrusion. Rollo was the 
captain of a robber-band. lie had been banished for a 
misadventure from the Danish Court, and set out to mend 
or make his fortune by such means as might be effectual. 
He led no army. He carried, as was the fashion in those 
days, a troop of desperate freebooters, in small boats 
capable of skimming shallow rivers, and even of being 
dragged up the banks, to pass bridges and obstructions. 



278 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

His men were picked, daring, and strong of limb. He 
chanced to fall on the coast of Neustria, probably not with- 
out knowledge of the fertility of the land and the sweetness 
of the climate, and went up, plundering his way, until he 
approached Rouen. There was no army in existence to 
meet them. Charles the Simple could scarcely protect his 
own capital of Paris. Accustomed as that coast had been 
to devastation from Danish adventurers (for Rollo was by 
no means the first, though he was the most terrible visitor 
of his kind), there was no concert or organization for 
defence, each feudal lord being satisfied if by thickness of 
wall and depth of moat he could keep scatheless his own 
castle, and pass on the unwelcome strangers to his next 
neighbour. The common people, carrying their whole 
world on their backs, made the forest and the crags their 
safe retreat. Rollo's fleet of boats had nearly reached 
Rouen when the inhabitants heard of them. The city 
was filled with consternation. Rouen had many stalwart 
men, probably far outnumbering' the Norman plunderers ; 
but they were not fighting men in the feudal sense of the. 
term ; and it would take many men of strong make,, 
unaccustomed to arms, to meet the giant Rollo himself. 
There was no attempt at defence. The archbishop, taking 
the customary lead, went forth to meet the pirates and to 
arrange terms. Rollo and his followers were admitted 
through the gates as conquerors. The Normans went 
round to view the city ; and finding' it a strong and gainly 
place, chose it as their home and centre for further- 
operations. 

This is the representation given of the matter by 
Depping", in his Expeditions JMaritimcs des JVbrmans, by 
Wace in his Roman da Ron, and, following them, by 
Thierry. 

Having now secured a footing, the chief recruited his 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 279 

small fighting force from the citizens of Rouen and the 
district around. The great town of Bayeux (the seat of the 
old Baiocasses}, and Evreux (of the old Eburovices), and 
others were soon captured. No time was lost in forming - 
matrimonial connexions. Rollo took to wife the daughter 
of the Count of Bayeux, and by adopting a method of 
ruling at once strong and mild, demanding - nothing but 
feudal subjection and tribute, became popular with the 
natives. As a stroke of policy, he professed himself a 
Christian ; he made peace, after successful conflict, with 
the King" of France, and married his daughter, having put 
away his former wife on the singular ground that he was 
now a Christian man. The land of Normandy was granted 
him in fief, and was duly parcelled out among his followers. 
The Northmen now freely intermarried with the natives, 
and, strange, to say, in two generations, as Sismondi has 
shown, had generally laid aside their Northern speech, and 
adopted the Romance language. 

Now, in pondering these events, one cannot fail of feel- 
ing surprise at the fact that a body so small could conquer 
and possess a region so large and populous, the fief of an 
established and civilized kingdom, and studded on all sides 
with baronial castles and intrenched cities. The exact 
number of the immigrants cannot be ascertained, nor the 
populousness of the towns and districts they subdued ; 
but from the tenor of the whole account it is perfectly clear 
that the conquerors were but a mere handful as com- 
pared with the natives. To remove our surprise, however, 
we have only to remember the maxims and practices 
of the time. Feudalism, now dominant, had its stringent 
and omnipotent laws. The bearing of arms was an honour 
conferred only on the few. Men-at-arms were gentlemen. 
The commonest grade of people, from whom the soldiery 
in our days of standing armies are drawn, were not men ; 



2 8o THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and " chattels " could not be supposed capable of bearing 
arms. The fiefholder, or lord, had a claim for military 
and any other kind of service from his retainers ; and the 
king - , as suzerain of the lord, had a claim on him. But 
the lord, as already observed, was often in practice the 
master of his own territory, and the protectors of that 
territory were his own men-at-arms. To bring the army 
of the king to his assistance might be a work of long 
negotiation and doubtful result. When, therefore, an 
enemy stronger than the local guardians attacked a terri- 
tory, the day was his own. This was precisely how it was 
that Rollo, prompt in action, fell in purpose, with few 
companions, but companions of the right mettle, surprised 
Rouen, and obtained ascendancy over the populous city 
and districts surrounding it. In those days the prowess 
and bodily strength of one man npt unfrequently scattered 
a multitude, and turned the tide of battle when the foe had 
well-nigh seized on victory. The Homeric mode of war- 
fare had almost been reproduced. Whoever has read 
" Ivanhoe " will scarcely forget the graphic picture of 
feudalism and its practice of arms there given, or the pro- 
digious valour and exploits of such knights as Ivanhoe, 
Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and the Black Knight. 

Now, when a district had been won by the sudden 
descent of such a small body of men as Rollo and his com- 
panions, and the conquest extended by the aid of the 
subjugated, it were absurd to suppose that the race-elements 
of the country were greatly affected. The land was still 
tilled, the vines tended, the cattle herded, by the same race 
which had done so before. The conquerors would soon 
stamp their own name on the country, and even on its in- 
habitants ; but the real change would only be a change of 
name and of name-givers. The conquerors might beg-in 
at once to enter into marriage alliances with the natives, 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 28 1 

and might abandon their own speech, adopting that of the 
land they had won ; but this would only give advantage 
to the native race. 

This was precisely the case in Western Neustria, after- 
wards called Normandy. The disturbance of the native 
race by the Norman was even less than that caused by the 
Frankish conquest. The land was not more the same land 
than the people who dwelt upon it were the same people 
as they had been for ages ; that is, they were substantially 
Gallic. 

And if this was the case in Normandy, a fortiori 'it was 
the case in the regions lying eastward and southward of 
that territory, while Brittany, to the west, was in a more 
marked degree than any held by a native race — a race, 
according to the best authorities, not omitting scientific 
searchers of the present day, more Cymric than the BelgaB, 
and nearly related to the so-called Celts of Britain, through 
various accessions between the 4th and ;th centuries from 
the Cymri of Wales. The wide and fertile regions on both 
sides of the river Loire, where afterwards we find the 
duchies of Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, the seats of 
the ancient Arvii, Pictones, Turones, Ligures, and on the 
east as far as the Somme, and even the Scheldt and the 
Meuse, the land of the ancient Belgae, were all marked by 
an immense preponderance of the native race, the intrusive 
Franks having only given it the faintest tinge of Germanic 
blood. All the great writers and almost all the scientific 
explorers of France agree that the modern French are 
what in popular phrase we designate them, a " Gallic " 
people — considerably Aquitanian or Iberian, dark-haired 
and swarthy, to the south and south-west, but prevailingly 
Gallic in the much more extensive central and northern 
part, Cymric or Belgic in the cast, and emphatically 
Cymric in the extreme north-west. We should not omit 



282 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

to mention that M. Broca, the celebrated ethnologist of 
Paris, has recently confirmed this view — the view also of 
M. W. F. Edwards and the two Thierrys — by minute and 
carefully conducted calculations. He has found, taking 
the measurements of the military conscription as his 
basis, that a line drawn diagonally across France 
from near Coutances in La Manche to Lyons, and 
another parallel to it from a little west of the mouth of the 
Somme to Geneva, cut off to the north-west the shortest in 
stature, whom he classes as purest Celtic, and to the north- 
east the tallest, that is, the people of Belgic race, corres- 
ponding" with the Gallia Belgica of Caesar, leaving in the 
intervening space a people of medium height, representing, 
as M. Broca thinks, the ancient Galli proper. He holds 
the Bretons to be the most unmixed Celts of all the inhabi- 
tants of France, and considers them the key to the ethnology 
of that country : " la clef de l'ethnologie de la France est 
en Bretagne." 

We have said so much on this point of the substantially 
Gallic and, so-named, Celtic character of these regions 
with a distinct purpose ; for we now desire to point out 
that from all these parts in greater degree from some, in 
less from others, were drawn the forces which William the 
Conqueror used in his descent on Britain. It is clear that 
this is the most satisfactory way to estimate critically, in 
the absence of definite statistics, the ethnological influence 
which the Conquest exerted on our population. The degree 
of that influence must more appear from other considera- 
tions again to be mentioned. 

What, then, was the field whence William gleaned his 
army ? Normandy, of course, was the first and principal 
part of it. A line drawn from Abbeville through Mantes 
and Alencon to Granville, in the Contentin, will nearly 
describe the inland limits of this country. It generally 




Pa^e. 283 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 283. 

corresponded with the modern departments of La Manche, 
Calvados, Orne, Eure, and Seine-Inferieure. Having first, 
with due forethought, g-ot permission of the Pope to enter 
and plunder England, and establish there the tax-office of 
Peter's-pence. his next step was to call a council of his 
barons and most intimate friends. They agreed to his 
proposals. In ordinary cases this alone would be required ; 
but the enterprise was of a nature so grave that, according 
to the Chronique dc Normandic, the barons advised that the 
people of Normandy should be consulted. This was a 
departure from the rules of chivalry and feudal policy of 
great import for us to note ; for it led to the result that 
William's host was not a feudal agglomeration of fief- 
holders and their men-at-arms simply, but an armed 
multitude, under recognized chiefs, gathered from all ranks 
of the people far and near. William called a popular 
assembly, and requested a free expression of their views. 
Opinions differed ; for he had now consulted men many of 
whom prospered by peaceful pursuits — merchants, trades- 
men, agriculturists. But the hero's tact and resolution at 
last prevailed, and all Normandy began to pour in its 
contingents. 

His next step, very significant to our argument, was to 
make proclamation through all the surrounding states, 
wherever any kind of influence could avail him, inviting 
indiscriminately all who had in them a love of adventure, 
all who needed a better fortune, all who could bring sword 
and lance, to come to the conquest and partition of England. 
From William of Malmesbury, Guilielmus Gemeticensis, 
and Ordericus Vital is, we learn that the call was promptly 
answered from all quarters. 1 Brittany, to whose ducal 
house William was nearly related, was first and most liberal 
in response. 

1 Will, of Malmesb., b. iii ; Ord. Vital. Hist. Eccles. p. 494. 



284 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Two of the duke's sons, Alain Fergant and Brian, and 
the lords of many castles and important fiefs, such as 
Rouel de Gael, Robert de Vitry, Bertrand de Dinan, were 
among the Breton volunteers. The young Count Alain 
alone, according to Hume, was followed by no less than 
5,000 men. Others flocked in from Maine and Anjou, 
from Poitou and Flanders, Burgundy and Aquitaine, and 
from the very borders of the Rhine and Italy. Most 
who came from these distant parts were hungry adventu- 
rers and military vagabonds, whose trade it was to fol- 
low the standards of any chief who would pay or promise 
pillage, and who scarcely had a right to anticipate the day 
when noble families in England would proudly trace their 
lineage to them as "Normans who came in with the 
Conqueror ! " All who came to swell the ranks were 
welcomed with eagerness. Broad manors, castles, titles, 
pillage, were freely promised. The terms had a charm 
that operated mightily. Some joined on regular pay, 
some on the simple condition of licence to plunder, some 
on the promise of a Saxon heiress in marriage. 1 All were 
satisfied with promises, and all were ardent for the fray. 
Proud and poor Norman barons, Breton, Flemish, Anjevin 
counts had already marked for themselves those Saxon 
estates which suited their cupidity. Outlaws and thieves, 
humble villeins and serfs of Gallic and Frankish blood saw 
a chance of "founding a family." Power of muscle was 
now a precious possession ; for he who did most execution 
on Saxon flesh would most win the Conqueror's favour. 
The spirit of the terrible man's harangue before the battle 
was already interpreted before the Channel was crossed : — 
" Remember to fight well and put all to death ; for if we 
conquer we shall be all rich. What I gain you will gain: 
if I take their land, you shall have it." 

1 Chron. de Novmandie, p. 227. 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 285 

Thus the Conqueror's great army was gathered and 
made ready for embarkation. It crossed the Channel and 
won the battle of Hastings, and by this one blow secured 
for Duke William the throne of England, and for every man 
who did his work well a substantial recompense. 

But we must more particularly examine the non- 
" Norman " part of William's invading army. It is a fact 
— and a most interesting fact in the treatment of our present 
subject — that a very large proportion of William's followers, 
as already intimated, were genuine Bretons, and that not a 
few were Britons. 

AVe advance, therefore, a second step. Already it has 
ajDpeared that the soldiers raised by the Conqueror in his 
own duchy of Normandy, must in great measure have 
been of Celtic origin ; we now have to show that in addition 
to these, he had in his train auxiliary forces which had no 
taint of Norman blood at all, but pure unequivocal Celts, 
close relations of the Cymrypi Wales and Cornwall ! Some 
of his chief captains were princes and lords of Brittany, 
and among these were men who became possessors of some 
of the chief baronial estates, and founders of some of the 
chief " Norman " families of England ! 

Of course, this statement will be received with a measure 
of incredulity. Many who have only read the " history of 
England," in their school books have never become aware 
of the fact. The Norman conquerors were A T ormans 
representing all the puissance and chivalry of France, and, 
beyond dispute, of the high breed of the sea-kings and 
terrible warriors — the Vikings and Thunderers of the 
North. This is their faith. But its basis is very sandy, 
and when that is washed away, it will be easy to see that 
the Norman conquest, if it added a good deal of Teutonic, 
added also a good deal of Celtic blood to the already mixed 



.286 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

"blood of England. Alas, then, in many cases, for the 
pride of pure Norman descent ! 

The Normans, having conquered and established them- 
selves as rulers over the Celts of the region which they 
called Normandie, naturally excited the jealousy and 
hostility of the Celts of Brittany ; but still, amid frequent 
conflicts and constant rivalry, the rulers by degrees con- 
tracted alliances by marriage, and it came to pass that 
"William the Conqueror himself, when a child, was entrusted 
to the care of his father's cousin, Alain, the ruler of Brit- 
tany, as guardian. If the ruling families were thus related, 
the populations were much more so. Originally identical 
in race, they had for many centuries freely settled in each 
-other's territories, and largely contracted alliances by mar- 
riage. It was not therefore strange, if Breton soldiers came 
to fight side by side with Normans in William's invading 
■army. 

We have shown that when William's resolve was fixed, 
he immediately invited all the assistance he could com- 
mand. His proclamation, dispersed through Brittany and 
other neighbouring countries, such as Poitou and Anjou — 
offering good pay and the pillage of England — attracted 
immediate attention, and brought multitudes to his stand- 
ard. William was complaisant and full of promises ; his 
liberality by anticipation made many friends; old feuds 
and sores between him and the Bretons were healed, 
and many of them came forward well armed for the 
conflict. 

Elides, whose father, Conan, William was suspected to 
have got poisoned, was now Count or regulus of Brittany 
under Norman influence. It has been already mentioned 
that his two princely sons, Alain and Brian, were among 
the first to arrive, with their train of followers, numbered 
by thousands — strong Breton " men at arms " ready for 



BRETON CHIEFS IX WILLI AM'S ARMY. 287 

the fray. 1 These two young leaders were called by their 
knightly followers " Mac- Tier us "-—sons of the ruler (W. 
teyniy chief, king), and both were destined, but Alain more 
especially, to obtain the highest prominence in the " Nor- 
man " baronage of England. The chief command of the 
second division of William's army on the field of Hastings 
was entrusted to Alain. 

Other Breton knights of renown, each leading his com- 
pany of warriors, were, Riwallon de Gael, otherwise 
called Raoul de Gael, and Raulf de Gael, lord of the 
castle and city of Dol ; Bert rand de Dinand? and 
Robert do Vztry, the last two somewhat mixed in blood 
and bearing French names, but recognised as Breton chiefs, 
and, like the others, accompanied by a " numerous train of 
followers," all of the Breton race. The captains of com- 
panies from Anjou and Poitou are not so plainly named ; 
but the fact is stated that many came from these Celtic 3 
states, and joined the forces of the Conquest. 

Alain Fergant, the son of Eudes of Brittany, already 
named, with his 5,000 followers did noble service at the 
battle of Hastings, and is commemorated by the old 
rhyming chroniclers thus : — 



1 Lobineau, Hisi. de Brctagne, i. 98. Alain attained to the highest 
celebrity in England. Brian also proved a distinguished warrior. 
Three years after the battle of Hastings we find him leading Norman 
troops to a decisive victory in Devon, on the river "Tavy," now Taw, 
where nearly 2,000 men on the Saxon side fell. Sax. Citron, ann. 106S. 

2 The pretty little town of Dinan, once a powerful fortress, bears to 
this day a purely Celtic name. The older form of it, with the ter- 
minating (I, Dinand, suggests the derivation dyfn-uant, its situation 
being on the brink of a deep ravine. The simplest derivation, however^ 
is din-nanl, the hill, or fortress on the valley. Dinan is a good specimen 
of an old Breton town. 

3 These were, probably, notwithstanding the Frankish conquests, as 
prevailingly Celtic as was Brittany itself apart from the accessions it 
received from the Cymry. 



2 88 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

" Li quiens Alain de Bretaigne 
Bien i ferit od sa cumpaigne ; 
Cil i ferit cume baron, 
Mult le firent bien Breton." — Geoff. Gaimar} 

" Alain Fergant, quens de Bretaigne, 
De Bretons mene grant cumpaigne ; 
C'est une gent here et grifaigne, 
Ki volentiers prent e gaaingne. 

" Bien se cumbat Alain Ferganz, 
Chevalier fu proz e vaillanz; 
Li Bretonz vaid od sei menant, 
Des Engleiz fait damage grant." — Benoitde St. Manre.- 

The Breton warrior did not lose his reward. A vast 
region of country north of York fell to his share ; and here 
on a steep hill overlooking the river Swale he built the 
great castle which he called Riche-mont (high or wealthy 
hill), now Richmond in Yorkshire. 3 

Riwallon de Gael became Lord of Norfolk, and built for 
his residence the great fortress of Norwich Castle ; but he 
was by and by found plotting against his master, and was 
obliged to retrace his steps to his native castle of D61. 

The first Lord of Coningsby is by an old ballad thus 
traced to Brittany : — 

" William de Coningsby, 
Came out of Britany 
With his wife Tiffany, 
And his maide Manfas, 
And his dogge Hardigras." 4 



1 See Monumenta Hist. Brit. vol. i. p. 828. "Alan, son of the Duke 
of Brittany, supposed by some to have been the original stock of the 
royal house of Stuart, followed his standard." Mackintosh, Hist, of 
Eng. i. 96. For the credit of the Breton prince, it is to be hoped he had 
no such posterity ! 

~ Chroniques de Norm. i. 496. 

:! " Et nominavit dictum castrum Richemont, suo idiomate Gallico, 
quod sonant Latini divitem montem." Dugdale, Monast. i. 877. 

1 Hearne, Prccf. ad Joh. de Fordun, Scoti -Citron, p. 170. 



BRETON CHIEFS IN WILLIAM'S ARMY. 289 

It may be possible, though difficult, to assign to all the 
Celtic knights in William's army their true localities in 
Brittany and the border lands between that state and 
Normandy. Concerning many of them the matter is clear 
enough, for the towns and castles which were called 
after them remain, and bear their ancient names, under 
slight disguise, to this day. We have selected from 
the old lists of William's companions, still extant, those 
names which are plainly Celtic, whether of Breton, 
Anjevin, or other origin. Several of the strongholds 
they inhabited, it will be observed, are in the " Contentin" l 
— the intervening promontory between Brittany and Xorth 
Normandy, having Cherbourg? the great naval arsenal of 
France, at its extremity ; but as all this district was 
intensely Celtic before the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, 
and was not much altered in its ethnical character by that 
event ; and was moreover the part of Normandy least 
affected by the Norman immigration, it seems likely 
enough that at the time of William's expedition, people of 
Celtic derivation were mainly its inhabitants, and it is 
morally certain that those lords of castles and manors 
w T hich bore Celtic names were themselves of Celtic descent. 
The following particulars, though highly interesting to the 
Celtic student, are not brought forward here as of un- 
qualified importance, though still of some significance in 
our discussion. Unless we had the actual pedigree of each 
family before us, we cannot be absolutely certain that all 
knights bearing Celtic names, and holding cas 

1 This local name, " Contentin," is a curious corruption of the . 

of Constantius Chlorus, who honoured the town of Constantia (now 
Coutances), -with a designation following his own name. 

2 Cherbourg is a bilingual name. Its first part is the Celtic a 
city, or fortress ; its second, a Saxon translation of the first, 

burg. Its name, when Richard III. made a grant of it to King Robert's 
daughter, was Or-us-bure. 

U 



290 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

bearing identical names with their own — for lord 
and manor had one appellation — were of pure Celtic 
descent; nor is there guarantee that every designation 
apparently Celtic is actually and undoubtedly such. The 
following few taken from a large number found in the Roll 
of Battle Abbey, 1 are most probably all Celtic — as much 
so as Dynevor, Powis, or Penmon in Wales. They are- 
nearly all situated in the Contentin. 

Bertrand de Dinand . . in Brittany. (Dinan, from din-a.s, or din- 

ncmt.) 
De Briquebec, Contentin, (brig, top, summit, similar to din, dun, or 

tor. See further on, on Local Names. 

From this knight descend, by the female 

line, the Earls of Huntly and Dudley. 



1 Battle Abbey and Monastery, whose ruins are now inconsiderable,, 
were built by William the Conqueror, on the slightly swelling ground 
about seven miles from Hastings, where the chief brunt of the battle 
which secured for him the crown of England fell. The plan of the 
church was so laid that the altar stood on the spot where the English 
standard was taken, and where King Harold is said to have fallen. The 
real site of the altar and choir was discovered only a few years ago,, 
when excavations were being made which brought to light the pave- 
ment and crypt foundations of the " Lady Chapel." These interesting 
remains, parts most likely of Duke William's original work, having lain 
for centuries under the debris of the great Abbey, are now open to the 
view of visitors. The " Roll of Battle Abbey," is of uncertain origin, 
but was drawn up by reason of a command left by William, that the 
names of his companions in arms in the conquest of England should be 
carefully recorded and hung up as a memorial in the building which was 
itself a greater memorial of bis vast achievement. Various copies of this 
Roll extant, show that it varied at different times, owing, it is suspected, to 
the willingness of the monks in charge to humour the vanity of families 
in subsequent ages, who were anxious to have their ancestors' names 
among the heroes of Hastings. 

The great entrance gateway and most of the other buildings, whose 
remains are visible, are of a later age than that of the conquest. Some 
assign them to the time of Edward III., and the gateway is held by 
many to be of the Tudor period. 



BRETONS IN WILLIAMS ARMY. 



2 9 I 



De MorviWe, Contentin, (Celt, mor, sea. Fr. ville, town : a town near 
the sea.) 

De Tourv'ille, ,, (Celt, twr, tor, high place or fortress, as 

Tor-point, Tor-bay, Twr-gwyn, Hey 
Tor.) 

De Bamville, * (Celt, barn, judgment, award. So named as 

the castle or place where matters were 
decided. A court.) 

De Bolvllle, ,, (Celt, bol, a round body, a hill or swelling in 

the surface of the earth, &c.) 

De Cambernon, ,, Camber, Cimber, Cymro, are all of one de- 

rivation. This name afterwards changed 
into Chambernoun. The first of the 
name in England settled at Madbury, 
Devon. 

De Trely, ,, (Celt, tre, an abode, settlement.) More 

than one baron of this name was settled 
in England. Present descendants not 
known. 

De Cavences ,, (Celt, cacr, a city, or fortress.) The C«rbonels 

were owners of this castle, and came over 
with William, but probably afterwards re- 
turned. 

De Mordrac ,, (Celt, mor, sea.) One of this house, Henry 

Mordrac, was Archbp. of York. 

Carrog ,, From the Castle of Carrog (Caerog) came 

the Maresmenes. Palgravc. 

De Tregoz ,, (Celt, tre, an abode, settlement.) The lord 

of Tregoz appears as chief figure in all 
lists of the Conqueror's companions. 
There is a place called " Lidiatt Tregoz" 
in Wiltshire. 

De GraigUQS „ (Celt, craig, rock.) The Mordrac family 

held this castle. Fr. orthography, though 
not pronunciation, is faithful to the true 
etymology of ihis name. 

De GVzjiisy ,, (Celt, can, cain, white, fair.) Hubert de 

Canisy was a prominent man in the con- 
quest arm}'. 

The above, along with many others, such as Brecry 
{brig), CanviWe [can cain), Garnototo [earn, cairu, a heap), 
Brasville [brus, large, great), were all inj.he same district, 

r 2 



292 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



a district which, from its position as a promontory, was 
likely to maintain its ancient characteristics of race com- 
paratively unchanged. Some of the above names were 
known in pre-Roman times, — and, thanks to the wonder- 
fully enduring nature of personal and local designations, 
are known to the present day ; and it is not too much to 
presume that those warriors who bore them in the nth 
century, were direct descendants of the race which had 
handed them down from early ages. 

From a multitude of names given in the old chroniclers 
— names which no Celtic scholar would be surprised to find 
in a list of Welsh or Cumbrian magnates — we have selected 
the following — all of whom are given as fighting under 
William's standard : — 



Bolbeke . (bo I, and bychan, 
small). 

Cantemor . (cant, hundred, a dis- 
trict ; mawr, large.) 

Caroun . (caer, and perhaps 
Iwan or Owen). 

Coudve . (coed, wood, and tre). 

Gomer . . (Cymber, Cymro). 

NerwWle . (ner, lord). 

Penbri. . (pen, head, and bre, a 
hill ; comp. Penberi 
& Penbre in Wales). 

(Rer. An; 



Pynkensy . 

St. Mor . 

Talbot . . 

To may 
Tracy . . 
Tragod . 
T^rbeville 
T«rbemer 
— Brompton's 
;lican. Scriptor. 



(pen, head, end ; can, 
or cain, fair, white). 

(mor, sea ; or mawr, 
great.) 

(tal, high, head, and 
bod, habitation). 

(twr, tor). 

(tre). 

(tre, and coed, wood). 

(twr, tor). 

[twr, tor). 

Chron. 

Ed. Selden, i. 963.) 



Breton . . (Same derivation as 
Britain and Briton). 
(caer ; or cor, a circle, 
and perh. the Norse 
by), 
(dwr, water, river). 
(dwr, water). 
Glauncourt (gldn, margin ; cur, 

circle). 
Howel . . (Cymric proper name). 
Kymarays (Cymro, Cimbri). 



Corby 



Doreny 
Dursiunt 



Kyriel . . (caer). 

Morley . . (mor, and lie, place ; a 

situation near the 

sea). 
Morteigne (mor, tain, a plain), 
il/ortivans (mor). 
Ry . . . (rhi, chief, leader). 
Rysers . . (rhi, or Rys, prop. n.). 
Tally . . [tal, high, tall ; lie, 

place). 
Thorny . {tier or tor). 



"WILLIAMS ARMY LARGELY CELTIC. 293 

Tourys . (twr, tor ; or dwr, Tregylly . {tre, gelli, grove) 

water, and perh. Trivet . . [tre,tref). 

Ry or Rys.) Turlcy . . [twr, tor, and lie, place; 

Tregos . [tre). or perh. dwr, water] . 

— From Leland. 
(Collectan. de reb. Brit. Ed. Hearne i. 206.) 

Now from these dry details of names, with their probable 
derivations, what is there to gather that will be of use in 
our argument ? Two things, certainly : — 

First : That the addition made by the Norman Conquest 
to the population of England was not a clear Teutonic ad- 
dition. And this will apply with as much force to the 
chivalrous and aristocratic class as to any other. 

Secondly : That, taking into account the Celtic basis of 
the " Norman " population itself, and the large number of 
Breton, Anjevin, and Poitevin, warriors, that swelled the 
ranks of the invading army, a very material proportion of 
the addition made to the population of England through 
the conqnest was beyond all question Celtic. 

It can scarcely perhaps be said that a moiety of 
William's knightly companions in arms were of Celtic 
race, — probably, of this class, the majority was in favour 
of Norse blood ; but it would require a good amount of 
presumption to assert that the majority of the supposed 
60,000 men who fought, and won a kingdom on the field of 
Hastings, belonged to the Teutonic race. It only seems 
a marvel that such a thing should ever have been believed. 

Now then comes the consideration of quantity. To what 
degree did the army of the Conquest add to the non- 
Germanic element in Britain? Confining our attention to 
the army and its crowds of ministering attendants, the 
answer of course would be that the degree would depend 
on the number of the invaders. This is not the whole of 
what must be considered ; but it is the first part of it. 

It has been said by Mackintosh and other historians who 



294 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

have somewhat critically scanned the accounts of this 
descent, and especially the capabilities of William's trans- 
port vessels, without calling in question the number of 
vessels given, that the multitude which formed the 
Conqueror's army could not be fairly taken as exceeding 
25,000 men. Four hundred knights or captains are 
mentioned by name in the Roll of Battle Abbey ; and it is 
said by men who have understanding in these matters 
that the custom of the time would assign to that number of 
knights such a proportion of cavalry and infantry as would 
give a total in round numbers of about 25,000; but it is 
obvious that this would mean 25,000 soldiers. The 
traditional total is 60,000. Who first sent the ball rolling 
by mentioning this number none can tell. Considering 
the way things of the kind are magnified by the popular 
wonder-loving and imaginative faculty, it is satisfactory 
to find the army which at a stroke brought England to the 
feet of the Norman, estimated with so much moderation. 
We are willing that the traditional number should stand, 
especially as the concession will only operate favourably 
to our argument. The more you augment the common 
soldiery, the more you will augment the non-Norman 
element. 

Now, even if we allowed that all the 60,000 men had 
been veritable Norsemen, the augmentation of Scandina- 
vian blood in Britain would not be relatively very large, 
despite the fact that the total population of England 
at the time was probably under three millions. But the 
considerations already advanced will not allow the sup- 
position. Perhaps not more than half the knights com- 
manding companies were Normans — we mean in the 
qualified sense in which AVilliam himself, whose maternal 
ancestors in more than one instance were of the earlier 
inhabitants of the country, was a Norman. We have seen 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 295 

that a number of the chief knights were Bretons, followed 
by their Breton soldiery. Many were Poitevins, many 
Anjevins, <5cc. The names of a large proportion of them 
are palpably Celtic or Gallic, with Norman- French accre- 
tions, as De Morville, De Tourvtile, De Treby, De Tregoz, 
De Carroy, De Brasville, Penbr'i, Talbot, Morley, Sec. 

If a large proportion of the lieutenants w T ere thus Celtic 
or Gallo-Frankish (though it is admited that their being 
called after Celtic local names is not conclusive evidence 
that in every instance they were of Celtic or pre-Xorman 
race), what must we not believe as to the nationality of the 
common soldiery and camp-followers ? Each knight had 
brought as many retainers, dependents, villeins, and serfs 
as he could persuade to follow him. The nationality of 
these is clear. Their class was that which conquest and 
feudal law had made either servile or holders of humble 
fiefs. Into this class few of the Norman fraternity had 
been suffered to descend. If race-characteristics can be 
supposed to be so persistent as many hold, without renewal 
from the original stock, in that multitude there were some 
with features as Roman as any that had landed on the 
same strand with Caesar, and some with the German red 
hair and round head which followed Merowig and 
Chlodowig from the Rhine country, and not a few from the 
lustrous-eyed an'd black-haired Iberians of old Aquitania. 
But it is impossible to doubt that the great majority 
were authentic Gauls and Celts. 

If this representation be correct, then the effect of the 
Norman conquest, so far, on the ethnology of Britain must 
have been greatly gainful to what was already in the main 
a non-Teutonic or Old British, that is, a Gallo-Celtic 
population. 

But there are two or three slightly qualifying facts to be 
mentioned. The conquering army was not the only 



296 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

channel guiding Norman blood into Britain at this period. 
Before the conquest, and after the conquest, hosts of 
Normans, perhaps as pure in extraction as any, had settled 
here. All know that in the time of Edward the Confessor, 
whose mother was a Norman, and who had spent so large 
a portion of his life in the Court of Rouen that he was said 
to be more French than English when he was placed on 
the throne, great numbers of his relatives and friends had 
been brought over, or had brought themselves over, and 
had been placed in high positions, and made the owners 
of large estates. Malmesbury, with his usual moderation, 
only says, " The King had sent for several Normans who 
had formerly ministered to his wants when in exile." So 
far had this work of favouritism gone on, however, that the 
greatest discontent and apprehension had been excited 
among the English party, and a strong feud already 
existed, which required but little to kindle it into open 
war. The Norman party was, indeed, small, but it was 
also influential. Bishops in those days were potent in 
state matters ; and Edward had seated Norman prelates 
at Canterbury, Rochester, and London. About the 
King's person, in high offices of state, in chief posts of 
command, were found Normans. When William the 
Bastard, therefore, a few years before the Conquest, came 
over on a visit to his royal relative, he found himself 
surrounded by such troops of his own countrymen that he 
felt nearly as much in Normandy as if he had not crossed 
the Channel. It is surmised that this was the time when 
the idea of becoming ruler of England first took shape in 
his mind. It is true that as yet the addition to the Norse 
blood of England, apart from the Danish importation, was 
but small, being confined to chief families and their 
domestics and dependents ; but such as it was it must be 
taken into account. 



INFLUENCE OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 297 

A much larger influx occurred after the Conquest. The 
barriers had now been thrown down, and all had a right 
of entry. The cowards who could not fight, the soft and 
luxurious, the idle loungers and waiters on the tide- strand 
of fortune could now come. The land of the kingdom, all 
the patronage of the kingdom, had been seized by the 
Conqueror, and was held in his single hand ; and on whom 
he pleased he bestowed favour. His terrible besom swept 
away all Saxon influence, and left the ground clear for his 
own partisans. Under William and under his immediate 
successors, thousands of Normans came over who had no 
hand in the Conquest as such, except as they contributed 
to fortify the position. But in such a body of emigrants 
purity of Norman descent would rarely be found ; nor,, 
probably, was it in any case demanded. All who came 
with Norman sympathies, Franco-Norman speech, and, 
haply, Norman names, were " Normans," were registered 
as such in the Saxon mind, and for ever after in English 
history. 

This then is the conclusion we arrive at from this 
necessarily general review of the subject in all its parts. 
The people who came in with William the Conqueror, 
though called "Normans," were Norman in blood in a 
lesser, Cymric and Gallo-Frankish in a far greater, degree ; 
and making every allowance for those of purely Norman 
extraction, who before and after the Conquest settled 
permanently in the country (for many after a time returned), 
the preponderance lies greatly in favour of those racial 
characteristics which were ascendant in Britain after the 
Saxon conquest, and had been scarcely balanced by the 
Teutonic after the incursions of the Danes. 

This is about all the gain to our argument which accrues, 
at present from this branch of our inquiry. The positive 
advantage it proffers is not strictly within the range of 



298 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

our subject matter, being in favour of the Celtic genus, 
rather than of the " Ancient British " species. Most 
undoubtedly it gives quite a new aspect to the change 
effected by the conquest in the ethnology of Britain, for it 
gives a presumption in favour of the hypothesis that this 
change was in the direction of Celticizing rather than of 
Teutonizing the English nation. 

But although it has been admitted that the Celtic 
addition thus made to the English, was not an addition 
directly derived from the Britons, and therefore cannot be 
fully appropriated in furtherance of our specific position, still, 
indirectly, much of that addition may be shown to have 
actually come from that quarter. Great multitudes of the 
Cymry of Britain, as we have shown, had emigrated to 
Brittany within the five or six hundred years preceding 
the conquest ; and their descendants who joined William's 
army, and merged into the English people on their settle- 
ment here, may not unfairly be claimed as additions from 
the Ancient British stock. It is more than probable that 
the feeling which excited the Bretons to join an expedition 
intended to humble the Saxons^was a desire to avenge 
the wrongs which had been heaped on their ancestors, and 
which had forced so many of them to quit their native land 
to seek a shelter among their brethren in Brittany, or, as 
it was then generally called, Armorica. 

Intimate intercourse had always subsisted between the 
Cymry and the Armoricans. They felt themselves to be 
but one people ; and the immigrant Cymry were received 
and allowed to settle in Armorica just as the Armoricans, 
under the name Brython, had been allowed to settle in 
Britain ages before. We have frequent intimations of this 
intercourse through the space of at least 700 years, and 
reaching to within a short distance of Rollo's conquest of 
Normandy. 



SETTLEMENTS OF CYMRY IN BRITTANY. 299 

Whatever may be thought of Conan Meiriadog's expe- 
dition under Maximus (in A.D. 383), as to its details, there 
can be no reasonable doubt but that in that age hosts of 
the Cymry did go over to Armorica. The Breton historian, 
Lobineau, rejects the story of Conan's settlement in Brit- 
tany under Maximus, on the ground that Maximus's fleet 
landed near the Rhine, and not on the Armorican coast. 
This, however, does not make it impossible that Conan 
and his followers should, and that under Maximus's 
auspices, reach, and settle in, Brittany. 

M. Lobineau, who has most laboriously investigated the 
history of his native country, is of opinion that large 
settlements of Cymry were effected on the coasts of 
Armorica. They called the parts where they settled Llydaw, 
a word meaning " the sea-coasts," and identical in sense 
with Armorica. 1 They established themselves at D61, St. 
Malo, St. Brieuc, Treguier, St, Pol de Leon, Quimper, 
Vannes, &c; and spread gradually from those centres into 
the country around, and the interior. They reached 
Rennes and Nantes. 2 The names of Devonshire and 
Cornwall, which they imposed on the districts of their 
adoption, are evidence that a large portion of the colonists 
were from those counties in Britain. ; 

It is impossible to read the local names which still 
survive in Brittany, some of them slightly disguised by 
French orthography and additions, without feeling that 
the people who imposed them not only used the language 
of the Cymry, but also were guided by the same ideas in 
the designation of places of abode, positions of defence, 
sanctuaries for Christian worship, as the Cymry. Take the 

1 Lobineau, Ilistuirc de Bretagne, pp. 5, G. 

2 Ibid, p. G. 

■• Histoire de Bretagne. See also Sharon Turner's Hist.oJ the Ang ■■ 
Saxons, vol. ii. p. 183. 



300 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

following as a few specimens : Dot (situated in a vale), 
Dinan, Plancoet, Lailvollon, Lannion, Perrhos (pen) ; Lan- 
mettr (mor — it is on the sea) ; Taule [doleu, on the marshes, 
near the sea) ; Morlaix [mor, and lie, a place on the sea 
or mor and dais, a ditch, ravine, a narrow sea entrance) 
Landivisio ; Lanilis ; Lysnevin ; Hyzvel-goet ; Carhaix 
Pemnarch (a headland) ; Concameau ; Pontaven (avon) 
Pontwy ; Landevan ; Hennebon (hen-bont) ; Vannes ; Maur 
Nantes ; Carnac ; Morblhan ; Caen (in Normandy) ; Lam- 
bader ; Roscoff ; Creislier ; A bervrach ; Tregastel, Sec, 

These were, beyond doubt, abodes and sacred spots of 
the old Cymry. Then the villages and homesteads, the 
brooks, ravines, hills, crags of Brittany, bearing Cymric 
names, are beyond number, and attest most distinctly the 
identity of the people with those of Wales. 

In the sixth century it is said that Caradog Vreichvras (of 
the strong arm), king of Cornwall, a friend of Arthur, and 
one of the Knights of his Round Table, emigrated to 
Armorica with a large company of his subjects. 1 This 
account, it must be allowed, savours somewhat of the 
legendary. 

Alain of Vannes having (in the ninth century) got rid of 
his rival, Judichael of Rennes, became sole king of Brit- 
tany, and completely overpowered the Normans. He died 
in 907, and his son-in-law, Mathnedoi, unable to cope with 
the Normans, fled to England, and placed himself and his 
family under the protection of Athelstan. He does not 
seem to have ever returned to his home ; but his son Alan, 
when he had grown to manhood, collected forces, landed 
on the coast of Brittany, surprised D61, St. Brieux, &c, 
and regained the throne of his ancestors. 2 This event took 
place within an age or two of the Norman Conquest ; and 

1 Sharon Turner, Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. 1S9. 
2 Ibid. p. 190. 



SETTLEMENTS OF CYMRY IN BRITTANY. 30 1 

it is impossible to doubt that Alan had been assisted in 
this expedition by the Cymry, many of whose children, or 
children's children, might enrol themselves among the 
hosts which came over with William. 

Another instance is given, at an earlier period than this, 
of intercourse between Brittany and the Cymry. Another 
Alain was in the year 682 King of Brittany. The royal 
race of the Welsh having become extinct through the death 
of Cadwalader the Blessed, at Rome, " Ivor, son of Alan, 
King of Armorica, reigned, not as a king, but as a chief or 
prince. And he exercised government over the Britons 
for forty-eight years, and then died. And Rodri Moel- 
wynog reigned after him." x 

All these and numberless other facts, some of which have 
already been specified (see p. 221, note), show clearly that 
the people of Armorica and the Cymry were on terms of 
closest intimacy, and mutually recognised each other as 
one race or nation. The narrowness of the intervening 
channel admitted of frequent interchange of visits, and the 
many wars in which both were engaged g'ave constant 
opportunity for mutual assistance. 

When William, therefore, invited the warriors of Brittany 
to join his standards, can it be doubted that thousands, 
allured by promises of lands and castles in the country of 
their forefathers, now in possession of a tottering race of 
usurpers — for in their estimation the Saxons were nothing" 
else than usurpers, and that they were in a tottering con- 
dition after the wars with the Danes and the feeble reign 
of Edward the Confessor, no one could doubt — would 
eagerly respond. Hence it was that Alain Fergant, the 
chief prince of Brittany, and Brian his brother, and such 
heroic men as Raulf de Gael of D61, Bertram of Dinan, &c, 
with their numerous troops of horsemen, were the first to 
proffer aid. The martial spirit and the hope of plunder, 
1 Brut y Tywysogion, in Monumenta Hi:,!. Brit. vol. i. p. 841. 



302 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

once aroused, would quickly win their way among the ex- 
citable Bretons, and all over the land the great Duke's call 
to arms would not resound uselessly. The feeling of 
friendship and relationship towards the Britons, of grudge 
and vengeance towards the Saxons who had caused the 
exile of their forefathers, and of eagerness for gain as well 
as for wild adventure, combined to draw the sons of Brit- 
tany to the field of Hastings. 

The popular poetry of the Bretons is not without some 
allusions to the time. In Villemarque's collection is a song 
bewailing the loss at sea of one of the young Breton heroes,, 
which begins thus : — 

"Between the parish of Pouldregat and that of Plouare, 1 

Young gentlemen were levying an army, 

To go to war under the Son of the Duchess, 

Who has collected many people from every corner of Brittany ; 
" To go to war, over sea, in the land of the Saxon. 

I have a son, Silvestik, whom they expect ; 

I have a son, an only son, my Silvestik, 

Who departs with the army in the train of the knights. 
" One night on my bed I was sleepless, 

I heard the maids of Kerlaz singing the song of my son," &c. 



1 As the original supplies a good illustration of the similarity of the 
language to the Welsh, we give the opening portion of it : — 
" Etri parrez Pouldregat ha parrez Plouare, 
Ez-euz tudjentil iaouank o sevel eunn arme 
Evit monet d'ar brezel dindan mab aim Dukes 
Deuz dastumet kalz a dud euz a beb korn a Vreiz ; 
"Evit monet d'ar brezel dreest ar raor, da Vro-zoz. 
Me meuz ma mab Silvestik ez-int ous he c'hortoz. 
Me meuz ma mab Silvestik ha ne meuz ne met-hen, 
A ia da heul ar strollad, ha gand ar varc'heien. 
" Eunn noz e oann em gwele, ue oann ket kousket mad, 
Me gleve merc'hed Kerlaz a gane son ma mab," &c. 
Barzaz-Brciz, public par M. de la Villemarque, vol. i. 104. Paris 1S39.. 
Other publications of the Vicomte H. H. de la Villemarque, illus- 
trating the literature of Brittany, &c, are — Poemes des Bardes Bretons 
du Vie. Steele. Paris 1850 ; La Lcgcndc Ccltique, en Irdandc, en Cambriae, 
at en Bretagne, St. Brieuc, 1859. 



BRETONS AND CYMRY WITH WILLIAM. 303 

The "son of the duchess" is understood to be the Alain 
Fcrgant already mentioned, son of the count or duke of 
Brittany, here called son of the " duchess " in honour of 
his mother. It is worthy of special notice that this old 
song — and popular songs and ballads are generally good 
reflections of the truth — shows that many people from all 
parts of Brittany were collected for the war. 

Facts might be indefinitely multiplied to the same effect, 
but these must now suffice. They establish the probability, 
and indeed the certainty, that great numbers of Bretons 
were ranked among the forces of the Conqueror. They 
prove beyond this that among the Bretons of those times 
were large numbers of the Cymry of Britain, exiles from 
their country by reason of the Saxon conquests ; and as 
such men would be the first, whether in their own persons 
or in the persons of their descendants, to embark in a war 
upon the English, it were perversity and wanton abuse of 
history to doubt that a good proportion of the "Norman " 
settlers were genuine children of the Ancient Britons. 
We have thus, therefore, advanced another step, and 
proved, Thirdly : That a non-Teutonic element was added 
to the English population through the Norman Conquest 
which was not merely Celtic, but in substance, though not 
in exact form, Ancient British. 

The conclusion we draw from the whole of this section, 
therefore, is ; that while the Danish Conquest considerably 
augmented the Teutonic blood of England, the Norman 
Conquest had the opposite effect. 



304 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



SECTION IX. 

The History of the Political and Social Relations of the People 
as indicative of the presence of the Ancient British Race, 
and of its Condition, in the Settled Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. 

This is a tempting, though a difficult, subject, and its 
suitable treatment would require far wider limits than can 
be here assigned to it. Through the few openings we 
propose making in the veil which conceals the humble and 
subject class from view, while warriors and princes mono- 
polize the open field of public attention, sufficient will be 
seen to form in the thoughtful reader's mind a strong 
abutment to the structure of argument we have been en- 
deavouring to erect. 

As far as seeing the actual condition of society in the 
mid-age of Anglo-Saxon power is concerned, the his- 
torian is as yet at a point of view far down the slope 
towards the dark, mist-covered valley, at the bottom 
of which, until recently, he had always dwelt. The 
laborious investigations of Palgrave, Strutt, Sharon Turner, 
Kemble, Wright, Thorpe, and others in England, and of 
Lappenberg, Thierry, Sismondi, Pauli, Schmid, &c, on the 
Continent, have thrown no little light upon the subject ; 
and probably much yet remains to be thrown, and that 
after a while the hill summit will be reached, and a clear 
view obtained of things still concealed. 

Do we already know sufficient to warrant the conclusion 
that political and social arrangements existed among the 
Anglo-Saxons which indicate the presence in their midst 
of an Ancient British element of population ? It signifies 
nothing here whether that element belonged to the free or 
to the servile class ; the question is — AVas it there or was 



ANGLO-SAXON SOCIETY. 305 

it not ? There seems to be more than mere intimations — 
something amounting to proof is, we believe, discoverable. 
Part of the matter bearing on this subject belongs to the 
chapter on Laws ; here, therefore, the exhibition of even 
the little that is known must be partial. 

1. The Constitution of Society among the Anglo-Saxons. 

The entire people of England in Edward the Confessor's 
time — Britons, Saxons, and Danes together — are to be 
probably estimated at not more than two and a half millions 
— or about twice the present population of Wales. This 
estimate, which is the largest allowed by the researches 
of the most competent historians, suggests a thousand 
thoughts respecting the woeful waste of life in Britain since 
the time when the Romans governed a population requiring 
a hundred military strongholds to keep it in check, and 
effectually tax it ! 

This population of two millions and a half was divided 
by the same kind of demarcations of " parishes," 
"hundreds," and "shires," that we have at present; 1 and 
it is not at all improbable that the parishes and villages of 
England in those times numbered more than one-half what 
they do to-day. The estimate is a moderate one, that in 
Edward's time England had 10,000 parishes. Our vastly 
increased population has not so much increased or altered 
the divisions of the territory, as created larger towns, and 
a more thickly-sjDread village and rural population. 
Domesday Book gives a gross population of only about 
300,000 ; but this great instrument was drawn up, not as 
a census of the whole people, but for revenue purposes ; 

1 This refers, of course, to the part of Britain known as " England." 
County divisions in Wales were first instituted by Edward I., and com- 
pleted by Henry VIII., when the district of the "marches" was 
divided into the " shires " of Denbigh, Montgomery, Radnor, Breck- 
nock, Glamorgan, and Monmouth. 

X 



306 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and enumerates, therefore, only such persons as had pro- 
perty profitable for the king. Hence, it takes cognisance, 
ex. gr., of only 42 persons as inhabitants of Dover, and only 
10 for Bristol. 

The whole country was divided into townships, or districts 
surrounding the tuns, or enclosed settlements of the lords ; 
and into cantreds (cant, tref, hundred abodes) or " hundreds/ 
a division copied absolutely from the Britons. Each tun 
had its own goverment — its own fiscal officer, acting under 
the lord of the land, but chosen by the tenants (tenentes), 
who was called tun-gerefa, town-reeve. He received tolls 
and dues for the lord, who was the proprietor of the tun, 
and these dues were of the nature of rents. 1 Each town- 
ship had its own police. When a crime was committed, 
the "hue and cry" was raised, and the whole township 
was responsible for the arrest of the guilty man. The 
government was thus distributed over the country, each 
township and shire governing itself. The king was the 
main centre in which all the parts and author" ities met and 
cohered. 

The people were divided into two great classes — the 
eorls and the ceorls, or the " Twelf-haendmen " and the 
" Twihaendmen " — persons possessing a dozen, or only 
two, hands, i.e., having so much legitimate power and 
value in the community. There was also, after the time of 
Alfred, but not before, a class of inferior eorls called 
sithcundmen, or " Six-haendmen," whose value was mid- 
way between the eorls and ceorls, because of their limited 
possessions. 

The t/ieozues, or servi, were not considered a part of the 

people at all ; they were chattels, and counted with the 

cattle. They were reduced to this degraded condition as 

persons taken in war, as criminals, or as the descendants 

1 Palgrave Engl. Commons, i. Sz. 



DIVISIONS OF ANGLO-SAXON SOCIETY. 307 

of such. The idea that the . theowes were all "Ancient 
Britons," is entertained by no competent historian. 1 

The ccorls formed the great majority of the inhabitants. 
They included all classes or degrees, from the humblest 
" legal " subject to the merchant and tradesman, corres- 
ponding, in fact, to the whole of the "middle" and 
■" industrious " classes of modern times. Every lay person 
who was neither eorl nor theowe, was a ceorl. The clergy 
were a distinct class, but being in those days the best 
educated men, and having by the Church cast around them 
a character of sanctity, were ranked with eorls, and were 
■of more value than they ; for the compurgatory oath of an 
eorl was only equal to that of six ceorls (or twelve hands 
against two), while the priest's was equal to that of 120 
ceorls, a deacon's to sixty, and a monk's (neither priest nor 
deacon) to thirty. Bishops having much to do with law- 
making, it was ordained that a bishop's word, like the 
king's, was conclusive without oath. Every priest, even 
the lowest, ranked as a thane — a " mass-thane," or religious 
man of rank. Truly the Anglo-Saxons were very pious 
after a sort ! Yes ; but the fact of the matter is, they 
yielded rank to the man who had real power, of whatever 
kind, in the community. 

It does not appear that the servile class, the theowes, num- 
bered high. Domesday notices only between 20,000 and 30,000 
— less than one-tenth part of the men of property, leaving 
out of account the general body of the ceorls. They were not 
hopelessly shut up to perpetual bondage. They were not 
prevented from acquiring property, and not unfrequently 
purchased their own freedom. Masters often manumitted 
their slaves, or by will decreed their future freedom. If 
therefore, it could be made out — which it cannot — that the 
class of the sen 1 /' was made up of the descendants of the 
1 See Lappenberg, Angl. Sax. Kings, ii. 320. 



308 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

subjugated Britons, no proof whatever would be thereby 
supplied that descendants of the Britons were not to be 
found in the classes of freemen, and even Thanes. 

The ceorl class included a most singular subdivision. 
These were persons who were perpetually attached to the 
land on which they were born, and although "legal" and 
" free," passed with the land when it was sold, and were 
under obligation to render service to their new, as they 
had been to their old master. They were cultivators of the 
soil, dwellers in villages — corresponding, therefore, to the 
villani of the Romans, and in some respects, to the villeins 
of feudal times. Tacitus describes a class of this sort as 
existing among the ancient Germans ; and the laws of 
Howel the Good show that such existed among the Britons ; 
probably, indeed, all the nations of Europe possessed an 
arrangement somewhat similar. 

Now, it has been argued by some historians — very 
learnedly by Palgrave — that this class of the ceorls was in 
great measure made up of the subjugated British race. 
The nature of their relations to the classes below and 
above, gives an air of probability to the theory. The 
villani were not slaves, but at the same time they were not 
wholly free. They were not allowed to leave the soil on 
which they were born ; and had no political power what- 
ever — a condition likely enough to be decreed for the 
subject race. Whether all classes of ceorls were thus 
politically powerless, may be doubted. The bordarii, the 
soclimanni) the libcri homines, were all ceorls, but of a higher 
order — the first holding cottages [bord) ; the second and 
third holding land : and as it should seem, not tied per- 
petually to the place of their birth. 1 The " liberi homines " 
were of the highest rank of ceorls, and held their land by 
military tenure. 

1 See Sir H. Ellis's Introduction to Domesday. 



DIVISIONS OF ANGLO-SAXON SOCIETY. 309 

That the Britons, to whatever class they were doomed 
in special instances, were on the whole treated with some 
consideration, we have every reason to believe. As a race, 
they were not merely allowed to continue on the conquered 
territory, but, as already shown, were tempted to do so b}' 
various advantages. An extraordinary fact, surely, in a 
conquered country, conquered too, after unexampled 
sacrifices — was the continued residence of the subjugated 
in towns of their own, and under laws and magistrates of 
their own, within the bounds too of the victors' jurisdiction ; 
as was the case with the IVealas of Wessex (as at Exeter), 
until the time of Athelstan's extension of the West Saxon 
•dominions westward. 

Though the pride of the conquering Teuton denominated 
the fallen nation Wealas, and Wyliscmen, or strang'ers, it 
went not so far as to deprive them of all liberty. In the 
rank of scrvi, they were put only as Saxons, Angles, or 
Danes themselves were put, i.e., they were subjected to 
bondage when taken as prisoners of war, or when convicted 
of crime of a certain degree of enormity. They generally 
belonged rather to the different classes of ceorls. Their 
princes were allowed in some qualified form to maintain 
their status, though, of course, deprived of all power ; and 
their best families were only prevented by want of means 
from occupying the rank of Thanes. It is true, most of 
the land of England had been divided among the successful 
warriors — the king taking a goodly portion himself; but 
we have no authority for supposing that all the land had 
been taken from the Britons. It was not the practice of 
the northern nations to rob the conquered of all their 
territory. The Burgundians in Gaul, the Visigoths in 
Spain, pursued the policy of taking only a portion of 1 In- 
land, charging the portion still held by the p itives with 



310 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

tribute for the king. 1 But Saxon supremacy had been 
most dearly bought in Britain — the brave Cymry having 
defended their own with a persistent resolution which 
found no parallel in Gaul, Spain, or Italy, and it is there- 
fore just possible that more of their land had been taken 
than was usual in cases of the kind. 

That there were Wealas, or Wyliscmen, who were pos- 
sessors of land, and had their appropriate wer-gild, or 
personal value, 2 just in the same manner with the ruling* 
race, is shown beyond all doubt by the laws of King Ina, 
compiled at the close of the 7th century. 3 These laws 
prove that there were Wealas who were free (for they had 
their wergild), but who possessed no land ; and also Wealas 
who were proprietors, of various degrees, and subject to 
divers charges. If the free Wealh possessed no land, his 
wergild was seventy shillings ; 4 but if, in addition to paying' 
gafol, or rent to the king, 5 he also held a "hide " of land 
(variously estimated at from 40 to 100 modern acres) then 
his wergild was a hundred and twenty shillings. 6 

1 See Allen's Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in Engl. p. 
138, &c. 

2 From A. Sax. wer, man, and gild, money. The wer-gild was a fine 
which a person was obliged to pay for homicide, &c, and varied in 
amount according to the rank of the slain. A person's status in society, 
therefore, was expressed by his wer-gild. Slaves had no wer-gild. See 
Bosworth's Angl.-Sax. Diet, sub verb. Wer. 

3 Ince Leges, 23, 33, &c. Comp. Dr. Rein. Schmid's Die Gesetze der 
Angclsachsen, esp. on Die's Gesetze. Dr. Schmid's work contains also 
the Laws of Alfred, of Edward, of Ethelbert, and of Athelstan. 

4 No Saxon shilling coin has been discovered, but its value is computed 
at about fourteen pence of our money. 

5 From Cymric gafael, to hold, a " hold," signifying in this case, by 
payment of toll, that the king had a claim on the man. The legal term 
gavel-kind is from this same word, and represents a purely ancient 
British custom. 

Laws of Ina, xxxii. 



NATIONALITY OF BRITONS RECOGNISED. 311 

Now it would be impossible to find more conclusive 
evidence than is here supplied in support of the positions : — 

(1.) That the Ancient Britons were properly incorporated 
into the body of the Saxon population of Wessex. 

(2.) That they were so incorporated, not as servile, but 
as free men. 

(3.) That they were granted the dignity of a graduated 
personal value according to the property they held. 

(4.) That they were holders of land. 1 

It also seems clear that the Britons, like the Saxons 
themselves, were free to ascend in the social scale, accord- 
ing to their loyalty, talent, industry, and increase of means. 
We have already explained the rank of the " Sithcundmen " 
or " Six-haendmen," as the medium class of aristocracy. 
Now it was provided that the Wyliscman who should be 
in possession oifive "hides " of land should enjoy the rank 
which was held by the six-haendman, or Thane. 2 This 
was the qualification also for the Saxon's advance to the 
position of Thane, or titled noble. The Saxon ceorl could 
rise to this elevation, provided the five hides of land had 
been in his family for three generations ; that is to say : A 
ceorl became possessor of five hides, his son succeeded to 
the estate, this son's son did the same, and this last man's 
son was entitled to the rank of Thane, by authority of 
Wessex law. The Briton and the Saxon were thus treated 
alike. 

It is worthy of remark, however, that the very laws 
which thus secured to the Britons similar privileges to 
those of the ruling race, distinguished their nationality 
from that of the Saxons, They are marked as Wcalas. A 
difficulty was evidently experienced in bringing about a 

1 See Lappenberg H*s£. of Anglo-Sax. Kings, vol. ii. 320, and Schmid's 
Die Gesctze dev AngelsacJisen, passim. 

2 Laws oflna, xxiv. 



312 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

thorough amalgamation, and toning down the meeting 
waves of colour, so as to present the appearance of a uniform 
hue. It cannot be doubted, the Wyliscman was then, as 
now, a stubborn subject, proud of his ancestry, boastful of 
his " antiquity," contemptuous of late-born authority 
obtained by brutish force, and by no means anxious to 
coalesce with the Saxon. The Saxon on his side, felt him- 
self every inch the superior. Had he not beaten the 
Wyliscman in open fair fight, and taken his land by right 
of his broad seax, which was his only law and title of 
acquisition, and gave his nation its name ? l Thus, for 
ages, a line of demarcation was maintained, — old memories 
lingering like embers, rekindled by every casual whiff of 
wind, the old Cymric language cherished with a brave, 
nervous, unreasoning earnestness, which demanded public 
recognition in the statutes of the realm. This was perfectly 
natural — the precise result to be anticipated from the known 
temper of the Britons, and indicative too of generous and 
discreet policy on the part of the Saxon Kings. Let 
it not be said that generosity was out of the question 
with a people like the Saxons. The lion is at times 
innocent, both in look and purpose, although when 
occasion suits, he can shake the hills with his roar, and 
make a fearful spring on his prey. The Anglo-Saxons, 
though unpoetical as the plains of the Elbe, were a 
thoughtful purposing race, grim and iron-handed in 
execution, and withal capable of a sense of sweet 
satisfaction, when the prize of valour was won. They 
were not an irreligious people, 2 and though Thor put 

1 The derivation of Saxon from seax, a sword, is familiar, and from 
its appropriateness naturally thought correct. They were a nation of 
" swordsmen." 

~ It requires some qualification in speaking of the religiousness of the 
old Germans. Here, as everywhere else, since their doings on the 



THE CONQUERED IN BONDAGE. 313 

no veto on the " plan " which they uncompromisingly 
pursued : — 

" That he should take who had the power," 

Odhinn counselled discretion; and there was an Alfadur 
(Father of all), higher than either Odhinn or Thor, who 
embraced the Wyliscmcu like the Englen and the Scaxan 
as his children ; and a Valhalla above, which was more 
likely to be reached, if heroic fighting and victory were 
followed by heroic magnanimity. 

2. Britons in a state of bondage. 

Domesday Book gives some grounds for believing that 
in the latter age of the Anglo-Saxon power a large pro- 
portion of the Thcozves were Ancient British prisoners of 
war. We have to remember that the statistics of Domes- 
day refer to things as they were immediately after the 
Norman Conquest. Now it is well known that the contest 
between the English and the Britons had of late ages 
been mainly confined to the border parts, between the 
territories of the Heptarchy and the country still held by 
the Cymry. If prisoners of war, therefore, were often con- 
signed to bondage, we should naturally expect to find the 
Theowe class numerous in the regions referred to, especially 
since the struggle in more recent times was conducted with 
greater bitterness, if possible, than had marked it at any 
former stage. 

British stage have come to view, they have not been indifferent to the 
"useful." Caesar says of them: "The Germans acknowledge no gods 
except those that are objects of sight, and by whose means they plainly 
benefited." (Quos cernunt, et quorum aperteopibus juvantur.) J V. Bell. 
Gall. vi. 21. Is this Germanic temper, with its subsequent alliance with 
Celtic idealism and warmth, at bottom of the fact that tendencies to 
superstition in England are ever put under check of rationalism, and 
that on the other hand a too intellectual scepticism is still tempered by 
an emotional piety and faith ? 



3 14 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Now the facts presented in Domesday very remarkably 
tally with this antecedent probability. The Theowes 
enumerated are found to be in the parts last yielded up by 
the Britons. In Gloucestershire, for every three freemen 
there was one bondman. In Cornwall and Devon they 
were in the proportion of five freemen and one bondman. 
Staffordshire presented the same proportion. Unfor- 
tunately, this great survey omitted the counties of Cumber- 
land^ Westmoreland, Northumberland, Durham, and part of 
Lancashire, so that we have no means of judging of the 
condition of things in the parts embraced by the Celtic 
kingdom of Cumbria. The further we remove from Wales, 
the fewer slaves we find enumerated. Almost everywhere, 
eastwards however, the proportion of slave to free is 
found to be about one in ten ; that is, the reader will re- 
member, one in ten of the people registered in Domesday ; 
for Domesday took no notice of the great majority of the 
ceorls, who were possessed of no property. But there is a 
notable exception in the case of East Anglia, where the 
proportion of slave to free is only one in twenty ; and a 
still more notable exception in the case of the Eastern part 
of Mercia, embracing the counties of Lincoln, Huntingdon, 
and Rutland, and of the county of York, where not a single 
slave is noticed ! In Nottinghamshire the servile class 
was very small, amounting to one only in 215 persons 
registered. On the other hand, in these parts the section 
of ceorls attached to the soil — the villani — appear to be 
very numerous, giving rise to the suspicion that here the 
theowes had been permitted, in course of time to work 
themselves up to the condition of the lowest type of ceorls, 
thus securing, at least, recognition by the law as human 
beings, and parts of the nation, although their actual com- 
forts might not be at all thereby augmented. 1 

1 See Lappenberg, Angl.-Sax. Kings, ii. 321. 



SENSE OF RIGHT IN SAXON SOCIETY. 315 

From this necessarily hasty survey of the condition of 
society under the Anglo-Saxon dominion, we rest in the 
following conclusions : — ■ 

[a.) That the community embraced a goodly proportion 
of the Ancient British race. 

[b.) The Britons were not as such incorporated into the 
servile class. 

(c.) They were granted the dignity of a graduated per- 
sonal value according to the property they possessed. 

(d.) They were holders of land. 

(<?.) They were permitted, like the Anglo-Saxons them- 
selves, to rise from one class of society to the other, even 
to the rank of thanes, and probably of eorls. 

(/.) They, like the Anglo-Saxons, when taken as 
prisoners of war, <5cc., were liable to the degradation of 
bondage. 1 

The political and social arrangements of our ancestors 
viewed from a modern stand-point have their cheerful as 
well as their gloomy aspect. It cannot be denied that the 
maxims that ruled in the days we have now been reviewing,, 
were the dicta of power rather than justice — the voice of 
the lord rather than of the aggregate wisdom of the many. 
By law, human beings were adjudged to be mere chattels, 
not to be counted with men, bought and sold with the acres 
on which they were reared — as if men were, not only 
according to the ancient fancy, auro'x^oi'cs, born of the soil, 
but still continued a veritable part of its substance — and 
had a value, recognised by society, affixed to their persons 
and life, not as being in themselves of intrinsic worth, but 
of worth only in proportion as wealth, and the wealth 
of land, was associated with them. By the accident of 

1 Hallam is of opinion that a large proportion of the serf population 
consisted of Britons. Middle Ages, ii. 386, 387. 



316 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

birth or fortune, the issue of a single combat, or a battle, 
men were made irresponsible masters of the happiness and 
lives of many equal to themselves by nature, and possibly 
greatly superior in the higher qualities of humanity. The 
high were subject to the low — the refined and princely 
hurled down to the footstool of the accidentally powerful. 
And yet, in so far as society was at all settled, there was a 
strong law of justice recognised. The time was one of 
mingled darkness and light, when the severities brought 
into vogue by ages of conquest and bloodshed and unre- 
strained passion were being gradually tempered by equity, 
and institutions which are now the pride of England were 
being painfully planned and reared out of ill-shapen mate- 
rials, conveyed, many of them, from distant lands, Even 
then, struggling against the stern and brutal usages cur- 
rent, an instinctive sense of right made itself heard in 
Saxon society, and the very slave was encouraged, by 
obedience to the hard behests of law, to hope for manumis- 
sion and honour. By lawlessness nothing was to be hoped 
for — the strong arm ruled and would avenge the infringed 
law, be it the best or the worst — but by patient endurance, 
and heroic confronting of adverse fortune, much might be 
hoped for, and obtained. Out of this hard nurture in 
adversity have come forth the solid and resolute qualities 
which distinguish the British race — a race which still, and 
more than ever, honours and maintains the supremacy of 
law, and also more than ever studies to moderate the 
rigour of justice and smooth the path of misfortune. 



3*7 



CHAPTER II. 

The Evidence of Philology. 

" Willst du die Menschheit . . . kennen lernen, so studire die 
Menschensprachen, und diese werden dir von manchem Kunde geben, 
was in keinem Geschichts-buche stent." — Dr. F. A. Pott. 

It is to be noted, in limine, that we do not propose in 
this chapter to show the relations of the English language 
to all the Indo-European tongues. Such a field of inquiry- 
would involve a hundred points irrelevant to the subject of 
this work. Our task is to show how far the Ancient 
Britons have entered into the body of the people now 
called English. By making it manifest that the language 
of the Ancient Britons has permeated the speech now 
spoken by the English people, we shall furnish a presump- 
tive proof that the blood of the former has to a greater or 
smaller extent tinged the blood of the latter. 

This, then, being our question, we have no business to 
wander away into the wide domains of comparative phi- 
lology. We need not touch upon the affinity of English 
to Sanscrit, or of Cymric to Sanscrit, for no one dreams 
that Sanscrit has ever been in use on British soil. Nor 
must we be tempted into the enticing exercise of descanting 
on the relation of Cymric to Greek ; for besides the fact 
that Greek was never, as a spoken language, a medium 
whereby Celtic words, whether in Cymric or other form, 
passed into English in Britain, we are far from believing 



3l8 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

in any closer relationship between Cymric and Greek than 
that of two languages proved by comparative philology to 
belong to one class or family of languages called Indo- 
European or Aryan, and to have taken their departure 
from the parent stock and from each other at a point less 
remote than the departure of the Cymric and Sanscrit, or 
Cymric and Gothic, from each other. 

How far has the Celtic speech influenced the English, 
and how far does this render probable the coalition of the 
Celtic race in Britain with the so-called Anglo-Saxon r 
This is now our question. 

The witnessing of philology on this point, is, it is 
believed, distinct and categorical. That Celts and Teutons 
lived long together, as one people, and on British ground, 
would be declared loudly and clearly by the English 
language itself even if history were silent. Much of the 
record once existing has doubtless been effaced ; but much 
still remains which is perfectly legible and gives a con- 
nected and unambiguous sense. 

The antipathy of race, the soreness produced by defeat, 
the revulsion accompanying a sense of wrong, would 
continue to be felt only by those British tribes which 
kept separate from the Anglo-Saxon settlements, main- 
taining an attitude more or less defiant. Those who had 
submitted, continuing in their native districts, content to 
work their way upwards from the condition of the " ceorl " 
to that of the freed-man, would by degrees forget the old 
hatred, and would maintain friendly intercourse with the 
conquering race. Continuing themselves to speak their 
native language, their children would gain some knowledge 
of the Saxon also, and their children's children still more. 
By degrees the difference of race, commemorated by a 
diversity of speech, would, by the adoption of the Saxon 
and by frequent intermarriage, be obliterated. During 






EVIDENCE OF PHILOLOGY. 319 

this state of transition, not the Saxon only but the British 
tongue as well, would receive a tinge of foreign materials. 
The Saxon, as being the less cultivated tongue, would be 
most liable to innovation, supposing that the social con- 
dition of the contiguous or intermixed races were equal. 
New ideas, tendered by the Romano-British civilization 
for reception, would require terms which neither Jute, 
Saxon, nor Angle possessed ; for ideas, and the words 
which are their signs, always go and come in company. 
The Latin language, even if the Britons generally spoke 
it — of which we possess no sort of evidence — was as strange 
to the Teutonic conquerors as the British itself. No means, 
therefore, remained to secure free intercourse but the ver- 
nacular of the conquered, until the conquered could be 
persuaded to adopt the Saxon speech. These remarks 
present the general social condition under which a trans- 
fusion of British Celtic materials into the Anglo-Saxon 
language would of necessity take place. But as we have 
proceeded on the assumption that the vernacular of Britain 
at the time was the Ancient British, this question must 
receive some further notice. 



SECTION I. 

Early Stages of Relation between the Anglo-Saxon and 
British Celtic. 

1. Language of Britain at the Saxon Invasion. 

Of considerable significance is the question, What was 
the language spoken by the Britons when the Angles and 
vSaxons came over ? If it was not in the main the Ancient 
British, then the idea that the Saxon tongue became 
charged with Celtic in the early times of the Conquest, and 
through intercourse with the Britons, must be futile. It 



320 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

has been strongly maintained by some that the Ancient 
British tongue, during the Roman occupation, had been 
superseded by the Latin. To this, with due deference to 
Mr. Wright and other equally accomplished men, we must 
without hesitation demur. No adequate evidence to sup- 
port such an hypothesis exists. 

It was the practice of the Romans to leave the people 
they conquered unmolested in the use of their own 
language. Agricola, after Roman power had lodged 
itself in this island for the space of a hundred years, 
only seems to have thought of inducing the sons of 
the chiefs (principum filios) to learn the Latin tongue. 
Prichard is doubtless right in saying that " in Britain the 
native idiom was nowhere superseded by the Roman, 
though the island was held in subjection upwards of three 
centuries." It is true that Gallia when subdued readily 
adopted the Roman speech and abandoned the Celtic. So 
did Hispania. So did Dacia. But the analogy of these 
countries is not necessarily followed elsewhere. It was no 
part of Roman policy to urge it. Besides, the continuous 
life of the Celtic speech in Britain to this day invalidates 
the theory. After the long train of conquests — Roman, 
Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Norman, and their united 
dominion of 1 800 years, the language spoken on British 
soil before Caesar set foot on it is still the vernacular, for 
weal or woe, of a million and more of its people, and until 
very recently was the vernacular of many more. Cumber- 
land and Westmoreland, Devon and Cornwall, the greater 
part of Scotland, and all Wales, along with considerable 
tracts adjoining, were British in speech long after the 
Romans retired from the country. Who will say that the 
central and southern parts were not likewise British ? 

But if the analogy of other countries is of essential 
import, let it be allowed. The Romans conquered Greece 



LANGUAGE OF POST-ROMAN BRITAIN. 321 

as well as Britain. Was Greece made Roman in speech ? 
They conquered Northern Africa. Did Africa yield up its 
vernacular in exchange for the Latin ? They conquered 
Thrace and the two Mcesias, inferior and superior. Did 
these become Latin r In all these, as in Britain, the 
Roman provincial government was established, and Latin 
doubtless was used as the official speech. But the people 
of these countries did not therefore speak Latin. Greece 
retained its grand old language ; and after many more 
conquests and revolutions — even after subjection to the 
Moslem, has retained it to this day. Africa cannot be 
shown to have done otherwise. Servia and Bulgaria are 
witnesses that Mcesia did not become Roman in language, 
and Roumelia bears similar testimony respecting Thrace. 
If these countries yielded not their vernaculars as did 
Gallia and Hispania, why should it be contended, in the 
face of the still surviving Cymraeg and the only recently 
extinct Cornish, that Britain did so ? 

The exigency of argument has led some writers, in spite 
of evidence freely allowed in similar cases, to question the 
antiquity and genuineness of the poems of Taliesin, 
Aneurin, Myrddin, and Llywarch Hen ; but if these are 
allowed to be productions intended to be understood by 
the Britons of the 6th and 7th centuries of our era, they 
furnish sufficient evidence that the Cymraeg was at that 
time a language widely prevalent, not in Wales merely, but 
also in the north-western parts of Britain. Taliesin only 
was resident in Wales, the others belonged to Cumbria. 
Did these bards sing in Celtic to a people, who, a century 
or two before, knew only Latin ? 

But history has a still distincter voice in the matter. 
Venerable Bede has left on record that in his time (8th 
cent.) the Island of Britain, " following the number of 
books in which the Divine Law was written,'' was inhabi- 

Y 



32 2 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

ted by " five nations — the English, Britons, Scots, Picts,, 
and Latins, each in its own peculiar dialect, cultivating" 
the sublime study of Divine Truth." ] - This was in Bede's 
own time (in prcesenti) , and the languages he enumerates 
here were book-languages, and not living tongues repre- 
senting so many nations — for the "Latins," as a people, 
had long ago left the island. But in another passage he 
speaks more distinctly — not of languages, including the 
Latin as the ecclesiastical and book language, but of 
peoples, speaking different languages ; and it is to be 
noted that he is now discoursing of an age considerably 
nearer Roman times than his own, and when the Latin, 
if ever it had attained to universal prevalence, might be 
expected still to be generally prevalent. All the nations 
and provinces of Britain, he says, in the reign of Oswald 
(circ. A.D. 635), a hundred years before the writer's time, 
were " divided into four languages (quatuor linguas) , those 
of the Britons, Picts, Scots, and English." 2 The Latin is 
not a spoken tongue, then, in the reign of Oswald. The 
Britons, in the 7th century are denoted a separate people 
through the use of a separate speech. Had they managed 
to regain a knowledge of their ancient tongue between the 
departure of the Romans (A.D. 426), and the reign of 
Oswald (begun A.D. 634) ? On the contrary, it is clear 
they had never lost it. 

That the English language began its course in Britain 
in the form of an uncultured Gothic vernacular cut up into 
divers dialects, coming into contact with a literary and 
ecclesiastical language, the most polished then in use, the 
Latin — and with a nearly universally diffused British 
tongue, enriched with all the treasures of Roman know- 
ledge, and largely charged with the Latin, as our first 
Appendix will suggest, need hardly be more than simply 
1 Ecclcs. Hist. B. i. c. 1. ~ Ibid. B. iii. c. 7. 



WHY DID THE SAXON REPLACE THE CELTIC ? 323 

stated. How it has received a tinge from the former, 
every tyro knows : how far it became charged with the 
elements of the latter, it now becomes our duty to investi- 
gate. The English language, like the people who speak 
it, has become a great reservoir to receive the contents of 
many fountains. As Professor Max Miiller says : " There 
is, perhaps, no language so full of words evidently derived 
from the most distant sources. Every country of the globe 
seems to have brought some of its verbal manufactures to 
the intellectual market of England." 1 

2. The Anglo-Saxon replaces the Celtic in the Anglo- 
Saxon States : An Objection, based on this fact, con- 
sidered. 

Against the doctrine that the Britons equalled in num- 
ber, if they did not vastly out-number, the Saxons at the 
commencement of the Saxon dominion, it is objected : If 
so, why was not the British language, in preference to the 
Anglo-Saxon, adopted as the language of the new king- 
doms r It will be readily seen that the argumentation here 
attempted is inconsequential. 

Doubtless the British, in point of copiousness and polish, 
was the superior language of the two. The Britons were 
also, at first, as every reader of history will allow, infinitely 
more numerous than the troops of invaders who came in 
small open boats to subdue them, and who succeeded, 
there is reason to fear, by treachery as much as by resolu- 
tion and force. But it remains a matter of fact that the 
Anglo-Saxon language became, from the outset, the lan- 
guage of the new settlements. Is this fact calculated to 
excite wonder ? The objection assumes that it is so 
calculated. Have the conquering few always or generally 

1 Lectures on Science of Language. Lond. 1SG1. 

Y 2 



324 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

adopted the speech of the conquered many ? History says 
not so. 

It has been said that the British was the superior lan- 
guage ; and it is clear that political wisdom would have 
counselled its adoption. Close and prolonged intercourse 
with the civilization of the Romans, and the elevating 
power of Christianity, had produced a mighty change in 
the British mind. The British tongue had correspondingly 
expanded. The rude Saxon must, by its side, have ap- 
peared meagre and uncouth. But the rude Saxon suited 
the Saxon mind, as it then was ; and as to its meagreness, 
it contained the vocabulary which corresponded with the 
Saxon's wants — it had terms for fish, flesh, and fowl — for 
boat, spade, and fire, and, pre-eminently, for the indispen- 
sable sword (seax), whose importance was so great in the 
Saxon economy, that it is said to have baptized the whole 
people after its own suggestive name. Then it may well 
be supposed that our piratical visitors had no greater 
respect for a cultured and enriched language than they 
had for the Roman villas, temples, and bridges they found 
in the land, and which, in their fondness for their seaxcs, 
they allowed for ever to crumble and perish, if, indeed, they 
did not deliberately destroy them, as an offence to their 
taste. 1 

On account of its superiority, doubtless, it was that the 

1 Comp. Hartshorne's Salop i a Antiqua,^. 263, &c. The Romans were 
celebrated for their bridge-building. How their chief religious officer 
came to be called pontifex, the bridge builder, it may not be so easy to 
conceive, but the title sufficiently indicates the importance and even 
sacredness they attached to the erection of bridges. See Rev. I. Taylor's 
Words and Places, p. 266. It is strange that with models before their 
eyes, and notwithstanding the great convenience of bridges for military 
transit, the Anglo-Saxons should have totally neglected the repairs or 
re-erection of the Roman bridges of Britain. Their neglect of villas 
and temples, less useful though more magnificent, is more easily under- 
stood. 



THE RUDER SPEECH MAY PREVAIL. 325 

Latin became the language of Gaul, and that the Romanized 
Gauls afterwards succeeded in imparting it to their Frankish 
and other Teutonic conquerors. It was for a similar reason 
that the Neustrians of the regions afterwards called Nor- 
mandy, taught it in the form of French to their Norman 
masters, and that these same Normans at a still later period 
forced it for a time upon the Saxons and Danes of England. 

The Danes, moreover, as conquerors, had received the 
speech of the Saxons they had subdued and decimated, 
and received it chiefly because of its superiority and wide 
diffusion. It is true the Anglo-Saxon was nearly the same 
with the Danish, but it had, since its naturalization in 
Britain, become subject to the influences of a higher civili- 
zation, receiving new elements from the British, as the 
British had received from the Latin, and thus obtained the 
precedence due to merit. The Saxon of the subject para- 
lysed the Danish of the ruler. As with other cases already 
enumerated, 1 similar mastery in similar circumstances was 
not obtained by the Ancient British. 

It is quite explainable that the ruder speech of a con- 
quering horde should displace the language of a fallen 
race, however cultivated. Indeed, prima facie, this is the 
result to be anticipated. But still more likely is it, when 
the conquerors are confederated tribes of boundless energy, 
bringing along with them customs and institutions to 
which they are devotedly attached, including a system of 
religion based on a venerable mythology, which maintains 
its authority with an iron grasp, and which they are bent 
upon transplanting into their new dominions. We know 
that the Arabian language was thus promulgated along 
with the faith of the Prophet of Mecca through many 
lands, whose inhabitants were more civilized than the 
Mussulmans. The Norman-French paralysed the English, 
1 Sec p. 356. 



326 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

while the Danish completely failed to secure a footing", 
although introduced by teeming multitudes, and given a 
theatre of action in different centres north as well as south. 
The Norman-French, introduced by a few, not only ruled 
supreme as the Court and official language, but its adop- 
tion by the aristocracy, and all the world of fashion, was 
complete. Hence its power to inoculate the speech of 
the nation. When its time of subsidence came round, 
therefore, it was found that an immense number of its 
vocables had found a lodgment in the body of the Saxon 
language (precisely in the same manner as the English is 
infusing its elements into the Welsh, and the French into 
the Breton, of our time), and, what is still more astonishing-, 
that it had induced the Saxon to abandon the greater part 
of its old noun and verb inflexions — cases of nouns, per- 
sons of verbs, plurals especially — a sacrifice which was 
doubtless conceded by way of imitating the royal and 
fashionable speech. 

History, in short, affords abundant examples of this 
kind. The explanation is to be sought in other and 
deeper causes than mere preponderance of number. The 
conquered may be few, and their language may be adopted 
by their subjugators, or the conquerors be few, and yet 
dictate their tongue to the conquered. Mere numbers tell 
infallibly neither way. 1 

Nor does the simple superiority of a languag'e, whether 
consisting in the perfection of its grammatical arrangement, 
or in the amplitude of its vocabulary, guarantee its 
adoption. 

1 Here the author of an able little brochure, The British People, is 
probably in error when he says, "The Romanic and Celtic elements in 
our language fairly represent the Celtic elements in the population of the 
three kingdoms," p. 60. At the same time, he may not have intended 
to convey the idea that the Celtic elements in the language represented 
the measure of the Celtic elements in the population. 



REASONS FOR SUBSIDENCE OF CELTIC. 327 

In the particular case of the Celtic in England, it failed 
to stand its ground against the Anglo-Saxon owing to such 
causes as the following : 

a. Want of concerted action amongst the British tribes. 
They fought and were conquered in detail. They them- 
selves, and their language, therefore, failed to inspire the 
respect which otherwise would have been conceded. 

b. The different British tribes, although speaking sub- 
stantially the same language, yet spoke it in different 
dialects — a circumstance which weakened the effect of their 
speech upon their conquerors. 

c. The Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, all spoke the same ~^£/^ 
language, and hence the general diffusion of their speech, •""" 
despite their frequent quarrels among'st themselves. It is 

true that dialectic peculiarities existed, although not to a 
wide extent — except in the case of immigrants who seem 
to have arrived from other quarters than Holstein and 
Jutland. 1 

d. By means of prior settlement of Saxons in the East 
and South of Britain, their language had already in a 
measure become naturalized. That such settlements had 
taken place, without conflict, in the course of ages, is more 
than probable. We are informed that even a century before 
the time when Hengist and Horsa arrived, Saxons had 
taken London, and slaughtered the count of the "Saxon 

' shore." Why should there be a shore called Lit as Saxouicnm 
at all in Britain except as the result of Saxon descent and 
Saxon settlement ? The story of the Saxon conquest of 
Britain, in fact, does not begin with the subjugation of 

1 It is more than probable that even in these early times the Saxons 
were not left to share the island with the Jutes, Angles, and Frisians 
alone, but that even Franks and Longobards, Norwegians and Danes, 
claimed some portion of the general spoil. Sec Procopius, Dc Bell. 
■Goth. iv. 20, 93 ; Palgrave, Engl. Com . i. 2. 



328 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Kent. Both the shores of Gaul and Britain were infested 
with sea-rovers and plunderers at the very time when 
Roman legions professed to maintain the efficiency of the 
imperial sway, and it was for the purpose of checking these 
disturbers, as already shown, that Carausius the usurper 
received his command. Names of places on the coast r 
from Norfolk to Sussex, and opposite, from Dunkirk to the 
Somme, to this day testify to the early settlement of Teutons 
in those parts. 1 

e. The elementary political and municipal principles, 
and the religious mythology they brought with them and 
so tenaciously held, could hardly be translated into the 
language of the Britons. 

f. The implacable hostility which the leading British 
tribes — the Cymri and the Cumbrians — manifested towards 
the conquerors, of itself prevented the diffusion of 
the vernacular amongst them. Neither would the Britons 
promote it, nor the Saxons receive it if offered. So viru- 
lent was this hatred, that the Christian Britons would not 
even proffer the truths of Christianity to their heathen 
masters. They were not the men, therefore, to offer their 
language, which they considered, next to their religion, 
the most sacred of all their possessions. 

g. The book-learning of the Britons — the language of 
which would most readily be embraced by the conquerors, 
after they had learnt letters — was in all probability in 
Latin. The old Celtic speech being" the every day lan- 
guage of the common people, the Saxon mind would be 
naturally prejudiced against it as such. 

3. The comparative freedom from Celtic of the earliest 
Anglo-Saxon literature, considered and accounted for. 

1 See Grimm, Geschichte dcr Dcuischcn Sprache, p. 626. St. John, Four 
Conquests of Engl. i. p. 44. 



PURITY OF EARLY ANGLO-SAXON. 3 20 

Charged to repletion as our present English is with 
Latin and French, Cymraeg and Irish, which, in combina- 
tion, certainly more than equal the whole bulk of the 
Anglo-Saxon portion, 1 it is remarkable how free from these 
foreign elements it presented itself in the first stages of its 
Britannic history. The Anglo-Saxon of the times of 
Ccedmon and Alfred is hardly at all impregnated with 
Latin, except in the terminology belonging to ecclesiasti- 
cal affairs. Biscop (episcopus), numiic (monachus), pall 
(pallium), psalter (psalterium), sa/zef'sanctus), maesse (missa), 
prccdician (praedicare), pistel (epistola), are among the terms 
already borrowed from the Church Latin. - 

Nor do we find any but the sparsest signs of Celtic. 
The " miraculous hymn " of Ccedmon, the first Anglo-Saxon 
writer whose productions are extant, is free from foreign 
intrusions : 

Nu we sceolun herigean Now we shall praise 

Heofon-rices weard The Guardian of Heaven, 

Metodes mihte The Creator's might, 

And his modgethanc, And his mood-thought (counsel), 

Weorc wuldor-fasder ; The Glory-father of works ; 

Swa He wundra gehwaes, How He of all wonders, 

E'ce drihten, Eternal Lord, 

Ord onstealde, &c. Formed the beginning, &c. 

Here and throughout the poem are no traces of Latin or 
Celtic. And though this precious relic exists in divers 
dialects of the Anglo-Saxon, such as the AVest Saxon and 
the Northumbrian, in none of them do we find foreign 
elements. 3 

Nor is the case different, if we move on to the time of 
Bede, Alfred, and /Elfric. The dying words of Bcdc, 

1 Dc Thommercl, in his Recherches, after laborious computations, fixes 
the proportion at 13,330 Anglo-Saxon, against 29,335 other words. 
- Comp. Guest's English Rhythms, b. iii. c. 3. 
3 See Latham's English Language, c. iv. 61. 



330 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

uttered in Anglo-Saxon, the versions executed by the hand 
of King Alfred, the colloquy and vocabularies composed 
by zElfric, all evidence the scrupulous care with which the 
well of Anglo-Saxon " undefiled " was guarded. The fol- 
lowing specimen from ^Elfric's Colloquium ad Piter os (ioth 
cent.), may serve as an illustration : — 

We cildra biddath the eala We children request thee, 

lareow, thaet thu taece us sprecan master, that thou teach us to 

[rihte], fortham ungelaerede we speak correctly, because we are 

syndon and gewaemmodlice we ignorant and speak badly, 
spreccath. 

Hwaet wille ge spreccan ? What do you wish to speak 

about ? 

Hwaet rece we hwaet we What care we what we speak 

sprecan buton hit riht spraec sy, of except it be proper and 

and behefe naes idel othe fracod. useful, not idle and bad. 

Wille [ge beonl beswungen Do you like to be flogged 

on leornange ? while learning? 

Leofre ys us beon beswungen We prefer being corrected 

for lare thaenne hit ne cunnan that we may learn rather than 

ac we witan the bilewitne wesan not learn, but we know thou 

and nellan onbelsden swincgla art good-natured and unwilling 

us buton thu bi to-genydd fram to give us the rod unless we force 

us, &c. thee to it, &c. 

So again of yElfric's Vocabularies (ioth cent.) These 
consist of Latin words explained in Anglo-Saxon, as the 
means of teaching Latin to the English youth. It is true 
that, professing to give Anglo-Saxon equivalents, it was 
right to use Anglo-Saxon terms, pure and simple, even 
though the daily speech of the people were far from pure. 
The author would only use barbarous vocables as a matter 
of necessity. This is our explanation of the comparative 
Anglo-Saxon purity of these vocabularies. They were 
intended, not to reflect and perpetuate the barbarisms of 
the popular tongue, but to correct them. That, under 

1 See Vol. of Vocabularies, ed. by T. Wright, M.A., F.S.A. Privately 
printed for Jos. Mayer, Esq., F.S.A., &c. 1S57. P P- *> 2. 



PURITY OF EARLY ANGLO-SAXON. 



these circumstances, they contain some few Celtic terms, 
not derived from Latin, as shown below, is proof of the 
naturalization, even at that time, of Celtic ingredients in 
the daily-life language of the Anglo-Saxons. 

We give an extract from iElfric (ioth cent.), showing a 
slight admixture of Latin and Celtic, mainly in names of 
agricultural implements, with modern English added. 



Latin. 


A. -Saxon. 


Latin. 


A. -Saxon. 


Vomer 


: Sccar, a ploughshare. 


Vitularium : 


Cealfa - hus, calf- 


Aratrum 


: Sulk, plough. 




house. 


Aratio 


: Eriung, ploughing. 


Bobellum, 




Buris 


: Sulk-beam, plough- 


(old form of 






handle. 


bovillum) : 


Fait, a fold for cattle. 


Stercoratio 


: Dingiung, stinking. 


Subula : 


A el, an awl. 


Fimus 


: Dinig, dung. 


Scops : 


Bismc, a besom. 


Dentale 


: Cipp, harrow. 


Caule : 


Sceapa-Locu (Lat. 


Stiba 


: Sulk-kandla, plough- 




locus), sheepfold. 




handle. 


Equiale : 


Hors-em, place for 


Occatio : 


: Egcgung, harrowing. 




horses. 


Rastrum 


: Raca, a rake. 


Vanga 


Spada, a spade. 


Traha 


: Citkc, a drag. 


Conjuncta : 


Foriogen, gathered. 


Runcatio : 


: Weodung, a weeding. 


Sarculus : 


Scrcadung-isen, tear- 


Tragum : 


: Dvaege, a drag-net. 




ing iron. 


Aculeus 


: Sticel, a goad. 


Terebrum : 


Navegar, a borer. 


Veractum 


: Lencgten-ertke,spring. 


Pastinatum, 




Sulcus : 


: Furh, furrow. 


(in Classic 




Circus 


: Witktkc, a band. 


Latin, land 




Funiculus 


: Rap, a cord. 


prepared 




Proscissio 


: Land-brace, break- 


for plant- 






ing the ground. 


ing) : 


Plant-s/Zcvj (Lat 


Ovile : 


: Sceafa-hus, sheep- 




planta), a planting 




house. 




stick. 


Bucetum 


: Ilryllwa-Jald, cow- 


Fossorium 






fold. 


(p. -Classic) Cosiere, vel delf-isen, 


Falcastrum 


: Sithe, a scythe. 




vel spada, vel pal, 


Serula 


■'■■.., a saw. 




a spade. 1 



1 The modern Welsh for spade is pal. If the word is not Celtic, wc 
have here an instance of an old Saxon term being preserved in the 
British tongue while it has no memorial in the English. So also W. 
rhaith, judgment, A. -Sax. raed; caib, a hoe, A. -Sax. cipp. 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Latin. 


A. -Saxon. 


Latin. 


A. -Saxon. 


Plaustrum : 


TVaen, a waggon. 


Ligo 


: Becca, a stake. 


Rota 


Hweol, a wheel. 


Cantus 


: Fclgc, a felly. 


Bovile sta- 




Radii 


: Spacan, spokes. 


bulum 


Scepen-steal, vel fald, 


Sarcina 


: Berthcn, a load. 




sheepfold. 




&C.j &c. 


We have also such ecclesiastical terms 


as the following: — 


Latin. 


A .-Sax. 


Latin. 


A. -Sax. 


Encenia 


Niwe - circ - halgung 


Fibula 


: Oferfeng, vel dale, a 




[from Gr. Kopuucav~\ 




Clasp. 2 


Anastasis : 


Digdnyssum, resur- 


Sculptura 


: Graeft, a Carving. 




rection. 1 




(W. cerfio, to carve, 


Capitulum : 


Cappa. (W. cap) a cap 




crafu, to scrape.) 


(insenseoi 






See Append. B.sub. 


head cover 






verb, crafu. 



ing). 

The Saxon instrument for writing was called graef. The 
relation of this and graeft, sculpture, to Gr. y2 a 4> w " to 
write," and Welsh crafu, to scrape, scratch, and ys-grifio, 
to write, is obvious. But the Anglo-Saxon may have had 
the word previous to the time of making its habitat in 
Britain. Rebellio is rendered by wither- ewy da, a com- 
pound term, part of which, the prep, wither, against, is 
proper Teutonic, and the latter part proper Celtic. W. ccdi, 
to rise, has as one of its forms, cwyd. The meaning, thus, 
would be, to rise against, to rebel. If from A.-Sax. cwide, 

1 " Digelnyssum " is clearly a hybrid word, having no proper deriva- 
tion from A.-Sax., except in the nys, parent of Engl. " ness," marking 
quality, as in darkness. The terminal urn is Lat. The A.-Sax. has 
digcl, but in the sense of " a secret," and having a meaning, therefore, 
quite the opposite of anastasis (avaa-raa-is) — rising to view, a resurrection. 
The digcl of the A.-Sax. is most probably borrowed from the Celtic. 
The Welsh has two words, digcl, meaning open, obvious, unconcealed, 
from di, priv. and celu, to conceal ; and the opposite dygcl, hid, con- 
cealed, from dy, intens. and celu. The A.-Sax. digcl seems to be 
borrowed from the latter; it has no cognate or analogue in A.-Sax. 

2 W. dal. to hold ; this fibula being a dress fastener, as well as 
ornament. A.-Sax. dale has no cognates in that language. 



CELTIC ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH. $$$ 

speech, this again is identical with the Celtic : W. gweyd, 
to speak, ckwedl, report, and the less satisfactory meaning 
o c resistance in speech would be derived. 

The above will suffice to indicate how the Anglo-Saxon 
of iElfric was not free from some little admixture of Celtic, 
as well as Latin. The next step from the ioth and nth 
centuries would bring us to the " Semi-Saxon " age, but 
to the peculiarities of that age we shall have occasion more 
specially to refer under another section. 

Suffice it further to remark, that the Anglo-Saxon 
language in the specimens we have received of it from the 
time of Caedmon to that of ^iElfric — brief specimens it is 
true, but which, if longer, would not greatly vary the result 
— show a comparatively pure, yet not an entirely pure 
speech ; and that the reason of that comparative purity is 
that the specimens are reflections of the literary and not 
of the popular tongue. 



SECTION II. 

Celtic Elements in the English Language. 

The revived interest now displayed in the study of 
Celtic literature, including the Celtic languages, assists 
to rescue the subject in hand from the grasp of national 
prejudice, and transfer it to the care of science. We shall 
be led to confess, by degrees, the confused character of the 
conceptions we had entertained even of our own ancestry, 
and that the analysis of our own English language — not 
altogether a language " undefiled " — in the light of an 
improved Celtic scholarship, had been one means of cor- 
recting our notions. 

To the Germans, as is usual in all matters of minute, 
painstaking scholarship, we arc mainly indebted for the 



334 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

results already attained in Celtic studies. The extra- 
ordinary zeal and talent displayed in the study of the 
Celtic languages by a prince of the Imperial Family of 
France, Prince Lucien Buonaparte, are well known to all, 
and have greatly aided in giving tone and impulse to the 
study. The names of Chevalier Nigra, in Italy, with 
Adolphe Pictet, in Switzerland, De Belloguet, Monin, 
Renan, &c, in France, must not be omitted. German 
scholars have, after a fashion of their own, by laborious 
analysis and synthesis, determined the relation of the 
Celtic languages to the whole family of Indo-European 
tongues ; and also, in a more limited field, applied the 
results of their labours to the elucidation of English 
Ethnology and English History. Adelung and Vater in 
their remarkable work, 1 had years ago supplied voluminous 
materials ; Arndt, in his Ur sprung und Verwandschaft der 
Europdischen Sprachen ; Diez, in his Lexicon Etymological i y 
and Grammatik ; Holtzmann, in his Kelten und Germanen ; 
Leo, in his various learned productions ; 2 Meyer, in his 
Importance of the Study of the Celtic languages ; Diefenbach, 
in his Celtica; J. C. Zeuss, in his Grammatica Celtica ; and 
Ebel in his Celtic Studies, and in his additions to Zeuss's 
Gram. Celt, are amongst our chief assistants. We must 
not forget also the labours of Pott, Grimm, and Bopp, in 
Comparative Grammar and General Philology. In our 
our own country the study has been cultivated by Edward 
Davies, Lhwyd, Whitaker, Prichard, Archdeacon Williams, 
Halliwell, Latham, Garnett, Guest, Norris, Stokes, and 

1 Mithridatcs, oder AUcgcmeine Sprachcn-Kundc. Four vols. Berlin, 
1806— 1S17. 

- Vorlesungcn u'ber die Gcschichtc des DcutscJien 1 olkes und Reiches. 
Halle, 1854 — 1S61. Fcricngcschriftcn, vermischte Abhandlungen zur 
Geschichte dcr Deutscltcn und Kcltischcn. Halle, 1S47 — 1852. Rectitn- 
dincs Singtilarum Personarum. Halle, 1842. A work on Saxon local 
nomenclature. 



VARIATIONS IN CYMRIC. 535 

others, with considerable success. We have now so far 
advanced that we cannot recede. New light will still pour 
in upon English ethnology and history from the searching- 
converging- lens of philology. 

It comports with the nature and design of the present 
work to direct attention more to vocabulary than to 
grammar. The Science of Comparative Philology is of 
necessity based upon an analysis of Grammar, inflections 
and phonetic laws, but the object we have in view in this 
chapter requires not a discussion of the principles of this 
Science. No one now denies that the Celtic is a sister 
tongue to the Teutonic. To enter upon a comparison of 
Celtic and English inflection and syntax were to begin a 
task too long ; for, to say nothing of the complexity of the 
subject, from the multiplicity of Teutonic and Romance 
diversities represented in our present English, the changes 
which have occurred in the inflection and construction of 
the Celtic dialects themselves, as witnessed by their 
written literature, would deprive us of any reliable stand* 
ard by which to test examples. 1 If, for instance, it were 
desired to compare the syntax or the accidence of 
Welsh with those of English, in order to show that 
the latter had become partaker of the features of the 
former, the question at once offers itself: What Welsh 
should be the standard — that of Taliesin, of Cynd- 
delw '12th cent.), or that of the present age ? The 
truth is that the Cymraeg of to-day is as different from the 
Cymraeg of Aneurin's Gododiu (say 6th cent.), or even of 
the laws of Hywel Dda (ioth cent. ; but the language in 
which they now appear is believed to be that of the i 2th 
cent.) as modern English is from the Gothic of Ulphilas — 

1 Compare, for Instance, the grammar of modern Welsh and modern 
Irish. When the two are compared in their earlier forms, as in Zeuss's 
Grain. Ccltica, they exhibit a nearer approach. 



33^ THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

as different, not in lexical substance merely, but also, and 
chiefly, in grammatical forms and combinations. 1 

It were easy to fill too much space with examples ; let 
one or two suffice. Aneurin's Gododin opens thus : — 

" Gredyf gwr oed gwas, 
Gwrhyt am dias." 
Of manly mind was the youth, 
Heroic mid din of battle. 

How many of these terms and inflexions are familiar to 
the modern Welshman of good education ? Not more than 
two of the terms, gwr, man, and gwas, a youth, and even 
the latter of these has come generally in modern Welsh to 
mean not " youth," but " servant." The inflexions are all 
obsolete. 

The first line in the sixth stanza of the same poem will 
show how words still in use are differently inflected and 
governed. 

" Gwyr a aeth Ododin, chwerthin Ognaw." 
The heroes marched to Gododin, and Gognaw laughed. 

The line in modern Welsh would be : "Y (art.) gwyr 
aethant (3rd pers. pi. past) z" (prep.) Ododin, chwerthinaz" 
(3rd pers. sing, past) Gognaw." This may be taken not 
only as an illustration of the fact that Welsh, like English, 
abounds more than in earlier times in the use of the article, 
prepositions, and other particles ; but that, also, unlike the 
English, it has increased its conjugating forms. 

Llywarch Hen's expression, in his Gcraint ab Erbin, 

" Ac elorawr mwy no maint," 
And biers beyond number. 



1 The hopelessness of the attempt of some Celtic critics to prove that 
the language of Taliesin and Aneurin is as late as the 12th or 14th 
century, is at once seen by its comparison with the language of the 
laws of Hywel Dda. The latter language, allowed to belong substan- 
tially to the 12th century, is much more similar to modern Welsh than 
the former — a fact sufficiently conclusive against this hypothesis. 



ACCIDENCE AND SYNTAX OF WELSH. 337 

though all the vocables are more or less familiar to the 
Cymro of the present time, is still as an expression com- 
pletely unintelligible to him, and that by reason of the 
disguise thrown over the words by an inflexion no longer 
known, and by the use of a word in a sense no longer attached 
to it. Elorawr here is the pi. of elor, a bier, but the plural 
termination awr is now obselete, the plural of elor being 
elorau; no, than, has long given place to net. Maint is 
now used for magnitude or quantity, rather than for 
number. 

In prose the change is equally great. It is not less 
marked in the vowels, and mutations of initial consonants, 
than in numbers and cases of nouns, tenses of verbs, and 
connecting particles. The truth is that the modern Cymric 
has felt the influence of surrounding tongues, has assimilated 
its grammar and syntax to theirs, while occasionally im- 
parting to them, in return, some of its own peculiarities. 
The same thing holds true of modern Irish. The gram- 
marians of this language find its forms so changed and 
corrupted that to rectify them properly they are obliged 
to have recourse to the most ancient MSS. 

But it is clear that if any Celtic grammatical forms are 
to be employed in proof of Celtic influence of this kind 
penetrating the English, the forms must not be those of 
Modern but those of Ancient Celtic ; and then, of course, 
the signs of the influence must be sought for, not in the 
present English, but in the language at some very distant 
point in its history — in Semi-Saxon, if not rather in the 
Anglo-Saxon itself. The signs of interchange must in all 
reason be inquired after under the period when the lan- 
guages were most brought in contact, and were most 
liable to modification. Conditions having changed, Cymric 
cannot be supposed to have lent its characteristics to the 
English in recent ages. 

z 



333 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Some writers 1 have attempted a comparison of the 
Cymric and Greek languages, with the view of proving the 
oft-debated point that the former is a near relation of the 
latter. But the theory can hardly, by any amount of lin- 
guistic lore, be established, if the comparison instituted is 
between the grammar forms of modern Welsh and those 
of ancient Greek. The principle would hold equally good 
if the comparison were made with modern English. At 
the same time it cannot be doubted that a remote relation- 
ship does exist between the Celtic and Greek, as well 
as Latin. They are members of a family, the Celtic 
having probably broken off from the parent stem, as Prof. 
Schleicher thinks, at an earlier period than either Greek or 
Latin. It must not be taken for granted that the muta- 
tions and inflexions of any language, Welsh included, are 
the same in all ages of its history ; to secure this per- 
manence the language must become " dead," and be 
embalmed or fossilized in written form. The grammatical 
features of Modern are very different, as already shown, 
from those of Ancient C3^mric. 

If M. Halbertsma had known that the sound th was 
present in Cymric of all ages (as far as the language can 
be traced), he would have refrained from putting the query, 
whether " the English alone could boast of having pre- 
served the true sound of the old etch (th) which has dis- 
appeared from the whole Continent of Europe, so as not to 
leave the means of forming a faint idea of the sound of 
this consonant without the aid of English : " 2 The Welsh 

1 The exaggerations of £ughe and others in finding coincidences 
between Welsh and Greek are well known. Many of the coincidences 
pointed out are nothing but words borrowed hy Welsh from the Greek 
•■--some of them through the Latin — as, cigion, ocean, d/tewfa; dagr, a 
tear, Sdicpv ; pesgu, to feed, fJSfficu, Lat. pasco. 

- Comp. Dr. Bosworth's Origin of the Engl. Germ., &c, Lr.ngs., p. 37. 



PERMANENCY OF LEXICAL MATERIALS. 339 

has this sound in both its forces, as in Engl, the, and 
///ought. But this can hardly be said to be proof of a 
peculiar connection between Welsh and Greek, although 
the latter has the sound th, represented by the character 6, 
because the same sound was possessed by the old Gothic 
and Anglo-Saxon, although it has now disappeared, as M. 
Halbertsma lamented, " from the whole Continent of 
Europe." But there are signs, it must be confessed, that 
the sound th, both soft and hard, was much less frequent 
in ancient than it is in modern Cymric. 

When we pass from the evanescent grammatical features 
of a language to its lexical materials, the ground seems 
to become solid. Words, in their substance, though it 
may be not in their inflectional modes, are permanent. Of 
the language of to-day they are as genuine parts as they 
were of the same a thousand years ago, and passing under 
various modifications into its divided dialects, and by 
degrees into separate languages, still continue unequivocal 
mementoes of a past connection and relationship of these 
languages amongst themselves. They are like stones 
which, once dug from a particular rock and wrought into 
a particular temple, have passed in the course of successive 
ages into edifices of different styles and purposes — triumphal 
arches, amphitheatres, monasteries, churches, fortifications, 
asylums — and at each exchange of locality and service 
have passed under the mason's chisel into a new form, but 
throughout have retained, in what remains of them, their 
original body, stratification, and quality, and may be com- 
pared by the geologist with rocks of the same stratum from 
any part of the globe. 

Proceed we now to the question of the chapter — the Celtic 
lexical elements of the English language. The following 
positions are indisputable. 



340 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

First. — The English language now contains a large 
infusion of words introduced from the Celtic tongues. 

Secondly. — 'The English language once contained multi- 
tudes of Celtic words which it has not retained. 

Thirdly. — The Celtic words it now contains have not all 
been assimilated in Britain, and from the Celtic tongues in 
Britain. Many came along with the Anglo-Saxon from 
the Continent ; and many, incorporated in Britain, were 
so incorporated from the Latin, or some other tongue than 
the British, whether of the Cymric or Gaelic branch. 
Norman-French, Dutch, Danish, German, have been filters 
through which Celtic has distilled into the English, and 
multitudes of the Celtic ingredients it now contains had 
belonged to the Anglo-Saxon in common with many of 
the Indo-European family of languages long before Britain 
had become the theatre of its development. Why these 
materials should be called " Celtic " we shall endeavour to 
explain under our second head. 

Now, the question to be determined by this Essay being, 
How far the present English nation can be shown to have 
been compounded of Teutonic and Ancient British materials, 
from the evidence, among other things, of its speech, our 
philological argument must be shaped and limited so as to 
include the following topics : — i. The Celtic elements which 
the English language has derived directly from the Celtic 
tongues, and subsequent to the Saxon Conquest. 2. Celtic 
elements in the English language derived by that language 
from the Latin. 3. Celtic elements in the English lan- 
guage derived by that language from the Teutonic tongues, 
and from the Norman-French. 

Neither of the last two can be taken as evidencing 
admixture of race, as between Anglo-Saxons and Britons, 
but as simply contributing to the general philological 
question concerned. Their importance in this last respect 



BRITISH CELTIC IN ENGLISH. 34 1 

claims ior them admission into the present discussion ; 
and they are, therefore, introduced. Our analysis of 
Celtic-English shall be conducted in the order above 
indicated. 

1. Celtic elements in the English language derived 
directly from the Celtic tongues, and subsequent to the 
Anglo-Saxon conquest. 

This section itself opens before us a very wide field of 
treatment. It is clear that our witnesses must be sum- 
moned not only from the modern English dictionary, but 
from the vocabularies of the language in any age since 
the Saxon conquest, and from that living English which 
floats on the popular tongue unconfined as yet to any 
lexicon. If the Celtic in Britain, whether Cymric or 
Gaelic, ever infused its vocables into the Anglo-Saxon 
speech, even though every tittle of such infusion had 
disappeared from the standard tongue prior to the age of 
Chaucer, but still can be traced as a fact once existing, we 
gain force to our argument from the fact — for we have 
evidence of such prolonged intercourse of the two peoples, 
and of such junction and fusion of race as we are in search 
of. Again, if the living dialects of our English are found 
to contain numerous elements which are undeniably Celtic, 
though never dignified with a place in the lexicon, we 
have as expressive and faithful indices to the past inter- 
course of the two peoples as any Norman-French or Danish 
terms now recognised as classic can be to the junction of 
Normans and Danes with the population of England. 

We, therefore, summon these solemn witnesses from the 
dead past, and these fugitive tell-tales from the obscure 
nooks and corners of our present England, to unfold to us 
the details of a transaction which no written history so 
clearly, impartially, and incontestably attests. 



342 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

It is impossible now to say what multitudes of terms 
from the speech of the vanquished and incorporated 
Britons became familiar as " household words " to the 
English of the Heptarchy. Doubtless, they were far more 
numerous, in proportion to the extent of the language, in 
early times than at present. That in process of ages they 
have disappeared, leaving, however, thousands of their 
kindred behind, only shows that they were subject to the 
same law which has swept from the Saxon so many of its 
own vocables. Hosts of these, as we all know, no longer 
appear in the English dictionary. Let a few instances in 
proof be given, under the first letter of the alphabet 
only : — 

Abie, " to pay for." Alegge, " to confute." 

Abraid, "to open." Alond, " on the land." 

Agrise, " terrify." Anethered, " conquered." 
Afterwending, "following." An, " grant," " allow." 

Agrill, " annoy." Amanse, " curse." 

Awhene, "vex." Aschend, "injured." 

Aken, " reconnoitre." Aschreynt, " deceived." 

Allyng, " entirely." Atbroid, " seduced." 

Arm, " poor." Awend, " go." 

These were once standard words in the English, but are 
now not to be heard. Any reader of Havclock the Dane, 
King Alysaunder y th.e Owl and Nightingale, the Ormulum, 
or the Life of Bckct, may multiply instances without 
difficulty. 1 

And not only have many hundred miscellaneous words 
disappeared, but many others, which, from their antithetic 
or other peculiar character, might naturally be expected to 
have been retained. The English was once enriched, not 

1 Confer also, A Dictionary of Oldest Words in the Engl. Language, by 
H. Coleridge. Lond. 1S63. 



EXTINCT ENGLISH WORDS. 343 

only with the former, but also with the latter words of the 
following couples : — 

( Neither ( Inmost ( Income 

( Nother ( Outmost ( Outgo 

( Highest ) Overcome ( Heretofore 

I Nythemest I Overgo ( There afterward 

( Thither f Therein ( Somewhere 

' Therehence ( Thereout \ Somewanne, &c. 

So great, indeed, has been the process, if not of degrada- 
tion, at least of deprivation, that it may be safely affirmed 
that about onc-scucuth of the vocabulary of the 13th century 
has entirely disappeared. To render a reason for the 
abandonment of materials so useful, and belonging so 
essentially to the language, may not be easy. The dis- 
turbance which ensued on the introduction of the Norman- 
French had doubtless much to do with it, and, at a much 
later period, the passion which grew upforthe " enrichment " 
of the language by the use of words of classical derivation, 
were among the causes in operation. 

We shall see also in the course of our discussion that not 
only Teutonic, but Celtic materials, once forming part of 
the English tongue, have dropped out of their places in 
the progress of ages. And in this there is nothing strange 
or improbable. If the materials of the English itself have 
been disintegrated, Celtic materials, subject to the same 
influences, would become subject also to the same fate. 

Out of the whole body of Celtic materials now in the 
English language, only a small portion, as already inti- 
mated, can be iairly claimed as a direct witness to amalga- 
,,.' ition of race. To determine that portion, and to bring ii 
down to the smallest proportions necessary to constitute a 
genuine factor in the argument, certain criteria must be 
adopted, and when adopted rigorously applied. We must 
separate and classify under their proper heads all words 



344 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

which, while containing Celtic roots, are presumably or 
demonstrably not of British origin, i.e., have not been in- 
corporated since the Saxon tongue became a denizen in Britain; 
and also such as have within that very period been incor- 
ated, but not from the speech of the Ancient Britons. It is 
essential to the integrity of our argument that this distinc- 
tion should be made, for we are arguing for race- 
amalgamation on British soil, and no amount of speech 
admixture, through the coalescence of the Celts and Teutons 
on the Continent, in ages antecedent, can here be of any 
avail. 

The magic skill of etymologists is proverbial, and all 
dealing with the results of their manipulations requires the 
utmost care. The transformations of words, moreover, in 
passing from language to language, from land to land, and 
from age to age, the disguise they assume through trans- 
position, elimination, agglutination of parts, and their 
occasional perverse change of meaning, make the labour 
of the most sober and skilful student by no means easy of 
accomplishment, or certain in result. The same word, at 
different periods of its history, and in the same language, 
assumes forms so different as to be scarcely recognisable. 
To give one or two familiar instances : our indefinite 
article, "a" was once "arie;" the personal pronoun,. 
"I" was at different times Yk, Ik, Iche, and also Ich; 
"always" was once a/gates; "hateful," atelichc; "lord,"" 
iilaford; "lady," hlcefdigc; " solemnly," solempcnly. Even the 
same word, in the same language, and at the same timc y 
occasionally appears under very diverse shapes. The 
whimsical transpositions of the Welsh 'nawr into 'rwau T 
and the squeezing into both these forms of the phrase, yr 
awr hon, " this hour," will be a well-known instance to the 
Cymro. Again, it is not an uncommon thing to see a 
word retaining its form more tenaciously in a foreign 



ANGLO-SAXON WORDS PRESERVED IN WELSH. 345 

language than in its own. Thus the Anglo-Saxon pic is 
better preserved both as to sound and orthography in the 
Welsh pyg than in the English "pitch" ; nacddre is better 
represented by the Welsh neidr than by the English 
" adder," and raca by W. raca than by the English " rake." 
"Words of this sort, especially such as have relation to 
agriculture and domestic life, are very numerous, and a 
most interesting list might be collected. Such words 
being found in large number in the Welsh and Cornish are 
extremely suggestive as to the commingled state of the 
Saxons and Cymry, both adhering to their own languages 
and usages, in ages earlier than the formation of our 
present English. 

And again, instances not a few occur where English 
words which still exist, but with a modified meaning, con- 
tinue to retain in the Cymric the genuine sense and charac- 
ter which belonged to them in their old English home. 
Shakespeare uses "brave," not in the sense of" courageous," 
but " fine," — brave words, brave clothes, &c. The Welsh 
say tyzvydd braf, fine weather, dillad braf, fine clothes. In 
the English version, Moses is styled " a proper child," i.e., 
comely, fair ; and in North Wales this very word " proper " 
is commonly used for beautiful, decent — dynes bropor, a 
beautiful woman, gwisg bropor, a decent dress, Sec. 

Not only so, but, curiously enough, the Cymric and other 
Celtic tongues may be shown to contain many Teutonic 
vocables, in all likelihood borrowed through intercourse 
and intermixture in Britain, of which there are now no 
traces in the English. They are flies in amber, with the 
difference that they are still alive and doing service. 
Caught, like stars falling from one region, and saved from 
destruction, they are sent rolling in other circuits — on the 
tongues and in the literature of another race. The Anglo- 
Saxon cgida, egithc, a rake or harrow, is preserved in W. 



346 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

oged, harrow ; A.-Sax. pal, in iElfric's vocabulary given as 
the equivalent of Lat. fossorium (post-class.), a digger's 
instrument^ and synonymous with delf-isen " a delving 
iron," is not found in the English language, but is safely 
handed down in the Welsh pal, a spade. This question, 
however, has another side : it is possible to argue that both 
these, and a hundred other words similarly preserved in 
the Celtic tongues (see p. 369, note 1), were not borrowed 
at all from the Teutonic, but are Celtic words which the 
Anglo-Saxon itself for a time borrowed and then re- 
linquished. Words perhaps, like men, have a congeniality 
for their old homes, and after long and distant wandering, 
return thither, for final rest. So it is that old Saxon words 
are now creeping back to our English, and putting to shame 
the Anglicised Latin, weak and affected, as well as alien. 

Caution is sometimes required lest words of similar 
meaning, having also an approximately similar form, 
should be supposed to have an identical ultimate deriva- 
tion. Arsmetric and arithmetic are of identical meaning, 
and are as much alike in form as thousands of words 
derived from the same roots, and yet the former is from ars 
and metrica, the latter from a.piOp.6^ words of totally different 
signification. The classical scholar will be intimate with 
many such instances. 

But although etymology is beset with difficulties, it is 
not, therefore, to be depreciated. In our present inquiry 
its services are invaluable. Many thousand words exist in 
the English language whose pedigree is as clearly ascer- 
tainable at least as that of any Norman baron, and many 
hundred words concerning whose Celtic origin no well- 
informed philologist can for a moment hesitate. But there 
are some of these, about the time of whose assimilation 
there is much room for debate. Independently of earlier 
Latin, and more recently added Teutonisms, a few, if not 



CRITERIA. 347 

several hundred words now enrich our language (without 
counting Norman-French and classical novelties), concern- 
ing which no competent Celtic and Anglo-Saxon scholar 
would hesitate to say that they formed no part of the speech 
which Hengist, Horsa, Ella, or Cerdic brought over from 
the Continent. 

Now to distinguish these latter elements from the former 
is a task of prime importance to our discussion, and a task 
which has never hitherto, to our knowledge, been attempted. 
Speaking of things, Plato, in his Cratylus, says that they 
possess cfxjyvr], o-x^a, and xP<V a > sound, form, and colour. In 
like manner it may be said of words that they have sound, 
form, and meaning ; and the nearness to each other of 
words in these three respects, to whatever languages they 
may belong in our day, must determine the measure of 
their consanguinity. At the risk of greatly reducing what 
might with much reason be construed into Celtic material 
in the speech of Englishmen, we have adopted the follow- 
ins criteria: — 

(a.) That a word be ascribed to that lang'uage as its 
. /. arest source in which it is found, as to root and meaning, 
most accurately and fully represented. Thus, " person " 
comes from Lat. persona; W. carehar, from Lat. career ; 1 
" malady," from French, maladie. 

(b.) That a word found to prevail in two different families 
of languages, such as the Teutonic and Celtic, be assigned 
to the one or the other, according as it is found in its 
authentic root to permeate most numerously the dialects 
or tongues of that family. An English word found in Irish 
and Welsh, or Welsh and Cornish, or Welsh and Armoric, 
or in any greater number of these tongues, and found else- 

1 This, notwithstanding the fact that Lat. career itself is of etymons 

essentially Celtic (car), or belonging to a primitive language, from which 
archaic Latin and Celtic have sprung in common. 



348 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

where only in Dutch or Anglo-Norman, or German, or in 
more than one of them, but displaying a fainter affinity, 
is classified as a Celtic word, and with that branch of Celtic 
with which it most harmonizes. 

(c.) When a word is equally represented in two languages, 
or in two families of languages, it is assigned to a particu- 
lar source according to preponderance of probability 
derived from historical, or other considerations. On this 
principle, " hour," W. awr, Fr. heure, Lat. hora, is con- 
sidered as immediately borrowed from the French, itself 
already borrowed. " Goose," W. gwydd, Ir. geadh, Corn. 
godh, Germ, gans, Anglo-Saxon gos, is classed as 
Teutonic. 

The Celtic elements, determined according to these 
criteria to belong to the English language, and to have 
coalesced with it subsequent to the Saxon Conquest, so- 
called, are distributed as follows : — 

(i.) Celtic words in the English Dictionary. 
(2.) Celtic words in the living dialects of England. 
(3.) Celtic words once found in the written English, but now 
discontinued. 



(1.) Celtic words in the modern English Dictionary. 

[Other derivations are capable of being assig'ned to 
several words in the following table. In such cases the 
question to be settled is : Out of two or more possible 
sources, which is the probably immediate source whence it 
was borrowed by the English ? 

The Celtic languages are represented thus : Welsh, W., 
Irish, Jr., Cornish, Com., Armoric, Arm., Manx, M. Gaelic 
and Irish being so similar, are classed together under Ir. 
The Teutonic tongues are marked thus : Anglo-Saxon, 
A.S., German, G., Danish, Dan., Dutch, D.] 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



349 



English. 
Aerie 



Babe : 

Backgammon 

Bait : 

Bank : 
Bar 

Bacon : 
Balderdash : 

Banner : 

Barb ; 

Bard : 

Barley : 
Barrel 

Base 
Basin 

Basket : 



Bastard 



Beagle 

Belly;: 
Big 



Celtic. 
W. eryr ; Corn, er ; Arm. ever ; 
Ir. iolar ; M. urley, eagle. 

W. ab, son ; baban, babe ; 

Corn, baban and mob. 
W. bach, small, and cammon, 

combat. 
W. bwyd, food ; abwyd, bait ; 

Corn, buit ; Ir. biadli ; Arm. 

boned. 
W. ban, banc ; Iv.bcann; Corn. 

ban and bancan ; Arm. bancq. 
W. bar; Ir. barra, v.; Corn. 

bara, v.; Arm. barren, v.; M. 

barrey, v. 
W. bacitm ; Ir. bogun. 
W. baldovddi, to babble ; 6«Z- 

dovddus, babbling. 
W. 6flHer (fr. 6«;z, high, &c); 

Corn, baner ; Arm. bannicr. 
\V. &ar/; Ir. beavbh ; Corn. 

&af/; Arm. &«;'/. 
W. frarrfi ; Ir. 6ard ; Corn. 

ianZ/i ; Arm. &arr. 
W. barlys ; Corn, barlys. 
W. baril ; Arm. &«?'«£ ; Gael. 

baraille. 
W. &fls; Corn. &as ; Arm. &«2. 
W. &«s, shallow, &as« ; Ir. 

baisin ; Arm. basdhin. 
W. basged ; Ir.basgaid ; Corn. 

basced ; M. bashaid. 
Corn, ifls, shallow ; Arm. 

bas ; shallow. 
W. bastardd, tarddu, to 

spring; Ir. basdard ; Corn. 

bastardh ; Arm. bastard. 
W. bach, little, or W. bllgail- 

gi, shepherd's dog. 
W. bol; Ir. bolg ; Corn. bol. 
W. batch, a burden ; bcichiog, 

with child. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 
Gothic, aro. The word 
has no relation to Lat. 
aer, Gr. a-qp. 

G. &K&*. 



A.S. batan, to bait ; Gr. 
|3t6roy. 

A.S. &AHC; Fr. &rt«r; Gr. 
fiowds. 



G. bache, " wild sow.' 



G. fahne ; Fr. banniere ■ 

A.S.fana, standard. 
Lat. barba. 

Lat. bardus ; Gr. [UpSos. 

A.S. &sro ; Lat./<n\ 
Fr. 6ah7. 

Fr. irts. 
Fr. bassin. 



Fr. fras, low (from Celtic) . 
D. bastaard ; Fr. b.itavd. 

No Teutonic cognate. 
Lat. bulga ; Gr. fto\ybs. 



;5o 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Engl is J:. 


Celtic. 


Bo! excl. 


: W. bw ! Exclamation to ex- 




cite fear. 


Bodkin 


: W. bidogyu, a dagger; Ir. 




bideog. 


Boil (s.) 


: W. bol round bod)', Ir. buile, 




Arm. bull ; Ccrn. bol. 


Bother 


W. byddaru, to deafen. 


Bothy (a hut) 


: W. bwth, a hut, bendy, an 




out-house; Ir. both ; Corn. 




bonti. 


Bowel 


: W. bol. (/&.) Ir. bolg ; Corn. bol. 


Bowl 


: W. bol. ,. 


Boy 


W. bach, little, bachgen, boy, 




youth ; Ir. bcag ; Corn. 




beclian ; Arm. bigan, bian, 




little, buguel, a child. 


Brae 


W. brc, mount, hill ; Ir. bri, 




ib. ; Corn. brc. Bray, as 




name of place, freq. in 




Cornwall. Cam Brca, 




(Corn.) Fenbrc, (Wales) 




hills. 


Brace (arch.) 


W. braich, arm; Ir. brach ; 




Corn, brccli ; Arm. brecJi. 


Brag 


W. brag, a shooting forth, 




malt ; bragio, to boast. 


Brent : 


W. bryn; Corn, bryn, bre, hill. 


Brigand : 


W. brig, hill, summit; brigant. 




Highlander, pi. brigantwys, 




Brigantes. 


Brisk : 


W. brys, haste, brysg, quick. 


Browse : 


W. brtcys, buds; pori, to 




browse ; Arm. brouz. 


Bulk 


W. bwjg ; Ir. bale. 


Bump 


W. bwmfi, pwmpian. 


Bunch : 


W.fiwng, pwng o flodau, b. of 




flowers. 


Cab : 


W. cab, caban, a hut ; Ir. 




caban. 


Cabin : 


Wi <".'//>«;/ ; Ir. caban. 


Cantred : 


W. cantnf — r««/, a hundred, 




and tref, abode. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 



A.S. beige, belly ; Fr. 

bouiller, to boil. 
No Teutonic cognate. 
Sansc. vdti. 



Gr. jUoXyos, [3o\ybs. 
Pers. 6ac/z, child. 

Sansc. uarrt. 



Lat. brachiiun, Fr. on?s. 
Gr. Ppaxiuv. 



Fr. brigand (from W. or 
older Celtic.) 



Fr. brouterj Gr. pippuo-Ku, 

fut. ppucroaai. 



Dan. biinke. 



Lat. ccnium. 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



351 



English. Celtic. 

Cairn : W. cam; Ir. cam ; Corn, cam ; 

Arm. cam ; M. cam. 
Carol : W. carol ; Corn, carol ; Arm. 

car oil. 
Carse (a fen) : W. cors, a bog, fen ; Corn. 

cors ; Arm. cors. 
Cart : W. carlo, to carry, cart ; Ir. 

cairt ; Corn, carios ; Arm. 

carr ; M. cayr. 
Cast (in play) : W. cast, a trick; Corn. cast. 

Arm. cacz. 
Cell : W. cell, closet, edit, to hide; 

W. and Corn, celli, a grove. 
Clack : W. dec, clccian, clock, bell ; Ir. 

clogaim ; Corn, c/oc/z, bell ; 

Ir. c/j£, ib ; M. clagg. 
Clean : W. s7<.;;/, clean, pure; Ir. 

glanj » Corn, glan ; Arm. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 



Clamp 


: W. clwm, a tie, clwmi, to tie. 


Clock 


: W. cloch, bell ; Ir. clog ; Corn. 




clock, &c. 


Club 


: W. dob, dwb, cloppa. 


Cock-boat 


: W. eweh, a boat ; Corn, coc ; 




Ir. ciiacli. 


Coot (fowl) 


: W. cwtiar, from cwta, short ; 




cwtiar, short-tailed hen. 


Cope 


: W. coppa, cob ; Corn. cop. 


Corner 


: W. corn, cornel j Ir. cearn ; 




Corn, cornel ; Arm. cor/K 


Coracle 


: W. corwgf corwgl. 


Could 


: W. galla, power, also gal/ml ; 




Corn, gal I os, gaily; Arm. 




£7Z//0»J\ 


Crag 


: W. craig ; Ir. craig ; Corn. 




carrag. 


Creak 


: W. crj'^-, crecian, ysgrcck; 




Corn, cri, noise; Arm. cri. 


Cricket 


: VV. cried!, crician, v. 


Cringe 


. W. crychu, crino, bend, wither, 




<Tj'/nv, shake ; Corn, crenne, 




tremble. 



Lat. carrus ; Sansc. car. 

Dan. cast, a guess. 

Lat. cclla. 

G. glocke, bell. 

No Teutonic cognate. 



G. klammcr ; D. klamp. 
G. glocke ; A.S. glucca, or 

G. £/0#>eZ ; D. /c/wM t \ 



A.S. caeppe, cop, Head, L 
Lat. cappa. 



Lat. z'aietf ; Sans. 5"^^. 



A.S. cearcia;: ; San: . 
to resound. 



G. 



352 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English. 
Crockery : 

Cromlech : 

Crone : 

Crook : 

Croom : 

(a crooked 
fork, pro- 
vincial) 
Crouch : 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 
A.S. crocca. 



Celtic. 
W. crochan, hollow vessel 

pot, cragen, shell ; Corn. 

crogen, shell. 
W. cromlech— crom, bending, 

llech, flat stone ; Corn, crom, 

bent ; Ir. crom. 
W. crino, wither ; Ir. criona, Gr. yepuv, old. 

old. 
W.crwc, s. crwca, a.; Ir. cruca. 
W. crwm, a bending, crymu, 

to bend ; Ir. crom ; Corn. 

crom. 



G. krumb : Dan. krum. 



Crowd 

Cudgel 
Cut 



Cuttle (fish) 



Dad 
Dainty 



Dale 



W. crychu, v. neut, to bend, 
wrinkle. This is possibly 
the root both of " cringe " 
and "crouch," perhaps also 
of " crook," but it is more 
probably itself derived fr. 
crwc, with the w modified 
into y in the verb. 
W. crwth, mus. instr. ; Ir. 

cruith ; Corn, crowd. 
W. cogail, distaff ; Corn, cigel. 
W. cwta, a. short, cwt'du, 
shorten ; Corn, cot ; Ir. 
attach. No trace of this 
word in any of the Gothic 
languages. 
W. cuddio, to hide, cuddigl, 
retreat ; Corn, citdhe, to 
hide ; Arm. cuza. Eng. 
" hide " is of same origin 
as cuddio, the A.S. hydan 
substituting initial h for the 
Celtic c or k. 
W. tad ; Ir. laid ; Corn. tad. 
W. dant, tooth, dantaith, 
feast; Corn, dans, tooth; 
Ir. dead; Arm. dant. 
W.>dol; Ir. dail; Corn, dol; 
Arm. dol. This word is 



Lat. chrotta Britanna, in 
Venant. Fortun. 

Lat. curtus seems to be 
of cognate origin. 



Sansc. hud. 



Lat. dens, tooth ; Gr. 

65oijs-oi<tos ; Ion. 6Swv ; 

Goth, tunthus. 
G.thal: D. dol; Rus. dol. 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



353 



English. 



Dally 

Darn 
Dastard 



Denizen 



Dicker 
(ten, as, 
a " dicker 
of gloves) 

Dock 

Doll 



Druid 



Celtic. 

found in names of places 
situate in val^s all over 
Wales, Cornwall, and Brit- 
tany ; Dolbadarn, Dolau, 
Dolywhiddens, Dolgoath, 
Dol, &c. 
: W. dal, data, to hold; Ir. 
dail, delay ; Arm. dalea, to 
stop, delay; Corn, dalhen, 
holding. 
: W. dam, a piece ; Com. darn, 

Arm. darn. 
. W. bastardd (?) mean, of low 
birth. If this with change 
of b inc. into d is not the 
origin of this word, it 
seems impossible to dis- 
cover one. The idea asso- 
ciated with " bastard," to 
some extent, though by no 
means wholly, enters into 
the word " bastard." Both 
are ignoble. 
: W. dinas, city ; Corn, dinas, 
from din, a place of strength; 
dinesydd in W. is a citizen : 
term, zen as in citizen. 

W. deg, ten, Corn. deg. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 



Fr. dame, slice ; Sansc. 
da ran a. 

[No trace of this word 
in any of the other 
Aryan languages.] 



[Good authorities give 
old Fr. deinsein as 
origin, but the word 
is more likely a cor- 
ruption of Cymric] 

Gr. Sha, Lat. decent. 



W. tocio, to shorten, clip. 

W. dull, form, dehc, image; G. eiou\ov. 

Ir. dealbhj Corn, del, sem- 
blance, form 
W. dcrniydd, fr. derw, oak ; Ir. Gr. 5/>Dr, oak 

d'irach oak; Corn, derow, 

do. Though derzeydd is a 

satisfactory derivation of 

" Druid," it is not so clpar 

that derm, oak, is the root 



AA 



354 

English. 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Flabby 

Flag(stone) 
Flasket 

Flimsy 

Flippant 

Fool 

Frith 



Fudge 



Funnel 
Gale 



Gown 

Gable 



Celtic. 

of derwydd, the ydd taken 
as a termination, and giving 
the idea of a person having 
to do with the oak, as 
mesurydd, a measurer, 
mdinydd, " a miller." A 
Druid was not so much 
concerned with the oak 
itself as with religion, know- 
ledge, and science, under 
the shadow of the oak 
grove. True, he esteemed 
the fruit or seed of the oak 
sacred. Still this analysis 
of the word derw-ydd is 
more probable than Dr. 
W. O. Pughe's, derw-gwydd, 
" oak-knowledge." 

W. llib, llipa, gwlyb, flaccid, 
soft, moist. 

W. llech; Ir. Hack. 

W. fflasg, flasged, a basket 
made of straw or wicker. 

W. llymsi, spiritless, flimsy. 

W. llipan, a glib chatterer. 

W. ffol,ffwl; Corn, fol, Arm. 
foil. 

W.ffridd ; Gael, frith, a forest, 
park. A.-Sax., in name, 
Fyrhthe. Leo acknowledges 
the word to be Celtic. 

W. ffug, deception, a feign- 
ing ; Corn, fugio ; Ir. bog. 
"Fudge" is a made-up 
story, pretence, " stuff." 

W. ffynel, air-hole, chimney. 

Ir. gal, gale, blast of wind ; 
W. aiccl, breeze ; Corn, aiccl ; 
Arm. aiccl. 

W.gwn; Corn. gun; Ir.gunna ; 
M. goon. 

W. gafacl, a hold. The gable 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 



Mid-age Latin, flaskettus, 
from the Welsh. 



Ft. folic, fou. 

[" Frith," an arm of the 
sea, Lat. /return, has 

no relation to this 
word.] 
Lat. has fucus, a dye, 
for false appearance. 



Gr. &e\\a, Lat. acolus. 



Low Lat. gunna ; Late 

Gr. yovva. 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



355 






English. 



Gavelkind 

Grouse 



Grudge 
Guess 

Guiniad 
(a fish) 

Gull (bird) 

Gun 

-Gyve 

Haft 
Hag 

Haggard 

Happy 

Harlot 



Celtic. Teutonic or other Cognates. 

gives timbers a hold, support. 

Ir. gabhaidh ; Corn, gaval. 
W. ceg,throa.t, cegio, to choke. No Teutonic cognate. 
W. gafael, a hold, to hold. 

See index " gavelkind." 
W. iar, or giav, a hen, and No Teutonic cognate. 

rlios, moor — a "moor-hen." 

This is the common name 

of the bird in many parts 

of Wales. 
W. gvwgnach. Lat. r.ugio, Gr. vpiJfu. 

W. ceisio, seek, inquire ; Ir. D. gissen. 

geasam. 

\V. gwyn, white — the colour 

of the fish. 
W. gwylan ; Corn, gullan. 
W. gwn; Corn. gun, a scabbard. 
W. gefyn, fetter, gafael, hold ; 

Ir. geibheal ; Corn, gavel. 
W. gafael, a hold ; Corn, gavel. 
W. hagv, ugly; Corn, iiagcr ; G. hager. 

Arm. haer. 

>> >j ») 

W. hap, chance, luck (?) 
W. herlawd [very doubtful [The classic tongues 

etymology] ; Corn, harlot, contain nothing cog- 

a vile man, rogue, villain. 

Is herlawd itself a Cymric 

or Celtic word at all ? 

It is given here in de- 
ference to the opinion of 

others. " Harlot " may 

have had its origin in A.S. 

ceorl, G. kcrl, a rustic, a 

slave, a " fellow," and in 

course of time, a coarse 

saucy person. The term. 

ot is not to mark the 

fern., as Charles, Charlotte, 

since in Chaucer " har- 
lot" is used for prolligate 

A A 2 



nate with this word ; 
ceorl, kcrl, are the 
nearest approach to 
it in the Teutonic] 



356 

English. 



THE PEDIGREE OE THE ENGLISH. 



Hiccup 



Hitch 



Hoax 
Hog 



Hoot 
Howl 

Hurry 

Husk 

Hush 

Kindle 

Label 
Lad 

Lagging 

Lath 



League 



Celtic. 
persons of either sex, 
whence, perhaps, the Cor- 
nish harlot. Ilerlod, boy, 
stripling, ; herlodes, damsel, 
are mod. W. without bad 
meaning attached. 

W. hie, a hitch, a snap. The 
latter part of the word is 
perhaps a modification of 
" cough." 

W. hie; Corn, hig, a hook; 
Arm. hygen. 

W. hoced, deceit, cheating. 

W. hwch, a sow; Corn, hoch, 
pig, hog ; Arm. houch, hoch, 
a pig. 

W. udo, howl, hwtio, hoot. 

W. wylo, weep, cry ; Ir. guil ; 
Corn, gwelvan. 

W. gym, drive. 

W. gwisg, covering; Corn. 
givesc, husk. 

W. ust ! 

W. cynneii ; Corn, cunys, fuel; 
Arm. cened ; Ir. connadh. 

W. Hub, strip, llabed. 

W. llawd, boy, lodes, girl ; Ir. 
ath. 

W. llac, loose, remiss ; Ir. 
lag ; Corn, lac, M. lhag. 

W. llath, rod, yard, measure. 
Though found in Germ. 
latte and Fr. latte and perh. 
cognate to Lat. latus, the 
terminal sound til, which it 
assumes in none of these 
langg., seems to suggest its 
immediate appropriation 
from the Welsh. 

W. llcch, a slab, a stone; Ir. 
leac ; Arm. leach ; M. Icac. A 
" league " was a measure of 



Teutonic or other Cognates, 



Gr. £ 

sail, 



; ; Lat. sus ; 
a sow. 



G. hculcn 
Lat. flco. 
Lat. curro. 



Gr. K \c 



Lat. ac-cendo, candco. 



Lat. laxus. 

Lat. latus? G. latte; Fi 
latte. 



Fr. licue, fr. low Latin 
leuca, adopted in Gaul, 
" Quum et Latini 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



357 



English. 



Loafer 



Lubber 
Lurk 



Maggot 



Marl 
Mead 



Mew 



Morrow 



Moult 



Celtic. 
distance marked by a stone 
standing on end. 

W. lloffa, to glean ; Uoffwr, a 
gleaner. A loafer is one 
who hangs about, picking 
up a precarious living. 

W. llabi, llabwst. 

W. Ucrcian, to loiter, lurk ; 
Corn, kvcli, a footstep, a 
trace; Ir. lorg ; Arm. Icrcli. 
Because a person who lurks 
makes marks by which he 
is traced? 

W. magit, to breed, nourish ; 
Corn, maga, to feed ; Arm. 
maga, ib. 

W. marl, rich clay ; Ir. marla. 

W. medd ; Ir. mcadh ; Corn. 
mcdh ; Arm. me?:. 

W. miivian as a cat ; a word 
invented to imitate the cry 
of the animal. 

W. bore, morning ; y font, to- 
morrow ; Corn, bore; Arm. 
bcure. The former mean- 
ing of " morrow " was 
"morning," thence the 
morning to come — both 
which meanings are still 
retained in German. The 
W. has two cognate terms 
to express the distinctions, 
bore and font. The change 
from W. bore to morrow, 
reducing the b into m, is 
less than the change of 
Germ, morgen into morrow, 
eliminating both the g and 
the n. 

W. moel, bare, moeli, to make 
bald; Corn, mod, bare; 
Arm. moel; Ir. maol. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 
mille passus vocent, 
et Galli leucas." Hieron. 

[Certainly not from G. 
laufen, to run; run- 
ning being far from 
the habit of such a 
person.] 



G. mergel. 

Gr. /xedv; Sans, madhu _ 
Lith. medus, honey. 



G. morgen; Gr. irpw't ; 
Sansc. prae, fr. pur, 
to advance. The A. S. 
has mom and morgen. 



158 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English. Celtic. 

Muggy : W. mwg, smoke; Ir. muig ; 

Corn. moc. 

Mustard : W. mwstardd, mws, a strong 

scent, and tarddu, to spring. 

Niggard : W. nig, nigio, to narrow. 

Nod, v. : W. nodi, to mark ; am-naid-io, 

to give a sign ; Corn, nod, 
mark, token , Ir. nod. 

Odd : W.od, singular, notable; odid, 

rarity. 

Pall : W. pallu, to fail, weaken ; 

applied like the English 
word to failure of appetite. 

Pantile : W. pen, top. A tile for the 

top of a house, a "roofing 
tile," which formerly was 
written pen-tile. 

Park : W.parc; Corn. pare; Ir.pairc, 

Arm. pare; M. pairk. In 
this case, as the word park 
is not in the A.-Saxon, the 
Celtic is chosen as the 
source whence the word has 
passed not only into Eng- 
lish, but also into French. 

Paw : W.pawen; Com. paw ; Arm. 

pad. 

Penguin : W. pengwyn (white-head), a 

(bird) descriptive name. 

Perk : W. perc, smart. 

Pill : W. pel, a ball; Corn, pel ; 

Arm. pellen. 

Plait : W. plethu, to weave, plait ; 

Corn, pleth, a plait, wreath ; 
Ir.fillcadh. 

Poke : W.^zc^jwhat swells or pushes; 

Corn, poc, a push ; pock, a 
shove, is still used in the 
Cornish dialect. 

Poll (head) : W. pel, ball; Corn, pel; Arm. 
pellen. 

Posset : W. pose!, possed, curdled milk. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 
A.S. smocca, smoke. 

Fr. moutarde (Gallic). 

G. knicker, Dan. gniker. 
Lat. nota, nuto. 



Fr. pare ; G. park 
(Gallic). 



G. fuss ; Gr. ttovs ; L. pes. 



Lat. pila, pillula, dim. 
D an. fletter ; Fr. plisser. 



G. ball. 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



359 



English. 


Celtic. 


Teutonic or other Cognates. 


Quay 


: W. cac, an inclosure ; Ir. 


No Teutonic cognate, 




ceigh ; Arm, kae ; Corn. ce. 


except D. kaai. 


Queen 


: Vide Appendix B, " Queen." 




Quip 


: W. chwib, chwip, a quick 
turn ; gwibio, to wander. 




Quibble 


: W. id. To argue evasively and 
triflingly, ever starting and 
turning from the point in 
hand as may suit, would 
combine in W. both chwipio 
and gwibio — both perhaps 
in reality one word. 


No Teutonic cognate. 


Quirk 


: W.chivym, rapid; also whirl. 




Rule 


: W. rcol ; Corn, rowlia; Arm. 


A.S. regol; G. re gel ; 




reolia. 


Lat. regula; Fr. regie. 


Sad 


: W. sad. firm, sober, thought- 
ful; applied in Eng. because 
of the quiet thoughtfulness 
of sorrow. 




Sallow 


: W. sal, ill, salw, mean ; salw'i 
olwg, dejected and sallow in 
appearance. 




Scare 


: W. yscar, to separate ; Corn. 
cscar, enemy 




Screech 


: W.ysgrcchain; Ir.screachaim; 


G. schreien. 


Scrip 


: W. yscrcpan, crop; so " crop " 
of a fowl, which is a purely 
Celtic term, though found 
in A.S. Germ, and D. The 
idea is that of a place to 
hold, a cavity. 


A.S. crop; G. kropf. 


Sham 


: W. siom, a disappointment. 




Shriek 


: W. ysgrcchain, Ir. screachaim. 
"Shriek" and "screech" 
are the same in derivation, 
varied in orthography as if 
to meet a slightly diiferent 
shade of meaning. 


G. schreien. 


Slab 


; W. l!ab,ys!ab, a thin strip. 


Lat. lam-ina. 


Spigot 


: W. pig, yspigod, a point, 


A.S. piic, a little needle 




spigot ; Corn, pigol, a pick. 


or pin ; G. picke, a 
pick-axe. 



360 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English. 
Spike 
Squeeze 



Squeak 
Stain 



Tall 
Task 



Through 
Torch 



Torque 



Tudor, 
(adj. as 



Celtic. 

W. do. a point, a nail. 

W. gwasgu ; Corn, gwyscel, 
Arm. gwasca; lr.faisg. 

W. gwychian. 

W. taenu, to spread, ystaen, a 
covering spread over the 
surface, whether to colour 
or protect. 

W. tal, Corn, tal; Tal Cam, 
the high rock in St. Allen. 

W. tasg, Ir. tasg. Possibly the 
first use of the Eng. "task" 
was to mark a quantity to be 
learned, under instruction, 
then to be done under di- 
rection. If so, dysgu, to 
teach (the word also means 
to " learn," like lemen, in 
Germ.) may have been its 
origin. 

W. trwy ; Ir. tve; Corn, tre, 
over. 

W. torch, a ring, wreath ; pro- 
bably applied to the flaming 
substance on account of 
circling motion of flame. 
{Vide Append. B. "torch.'') 

W. torch, id.; tor is common 
in Celtic to express round- 
ness, protuberance, &c. 
Torrog, as adj. expresses the 
quality of fulness ; a bulg- 
ing form. W. torchog is 
circling, coiling, as y 
sarph dorchog — the coiling 
serpent. W. troi, to turn, 
twist. W. Corn. Arm. tro, a 
turn, circuit. ( I Idc Append. 
B. "torch.") 

W. Tudyr, the name of Owen 
Tudor, of Wales, who mar- 



Tcutonic or other Cognates. 



Lat. stannnm, an alloy ; 
Gr. relvw, to extend. 



Gr. ot5acr/cw, Lat. disco, 
are not the immediate 
source ; Fr. tache. 



A.S. thurh; G. durch. 
Archaic Celtic root. 

Lat. torquco ; Fr. torche, 
It. torcia ; Span, au- 
tarch a. 



Lat. torquco. 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH. 



;6i 



English. 
" Tudor 
style.") 



Twaddle 



Wai 



Whim 



Whole 



Celtic. 

ried Catherine of France, 
widow of Henry V., and 
from whom descended the 
"Tudor" Royal Family of 
England. 

W. chwcdl, gossip, a story, 
chwedlcna, to prattle, talk. 

W. wylo, to cry, weep ; Corn. 
wole and oh; Ir. and Gael. 
guil; Manx gul. This word 
appears in Semi - Saxon 
period,^, gr. in Alysaunder, 
but the A. -Sax shows no 
trace of it, unless by a 
violent interpretation it be 
referred to wad, slaughter, 
death, and waelhlem, " a 
slaughter, or war cry." 

W. chwim, a brisk motion, a 
turn. 

W. holl, oil, altogether, the 
whole. It is barely re- 
presented in A.-S., but 
found in Semi-Sax. ex. gv. 
Robert of Gloucester, 377. 
The aspirate wh was more 
probably inherited from the 
Celtic than from Gr. Ir. 
huile and oil ; Corn, oil, Arm. 
holl and oil. 



Teutonic or other Cognates. 
Possibly from Theodore, 
Gr. Oeooiupos 



It. guaiolare ; Lat. 
Gr, kAcu'w. 



rleo , 



Gr. 8X0 

all. 



A.S. al 



A. -Sax. al, and Germ. 
all, are related. 



The above list could not perhaps be greatly augmented 
— it is just possible it ought to be, by one or two words, 
curtailed. It is much shorter than the extravagant expec- 
tations of some Celtic enthusiasts would dictate, and too 
ample to be received without demur by others. The 
Englishman who believes himself to be a pure Teuton, 
would rather it were not proved to him that he is every 
day talking so much Celtic. It is perplexing - , however, 



362 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

to see in such a work as Marsh's English Language x the 
following, and other equally unlikely words, derived from 
the Celtic — mostly from the Welsh: — barrow, broider, 
clout, kiln, tenter, fleam, flaw, frieze, griddle, gruel, wall, 
wicket, flannel, housing, locker, flummery, mesh, pail, 
pitcher, pottage, ridge, drill, solder, size, tackle, tassel,. 
— clearly none of them of Celtic, but nearly all of well- 
known Teutonic origin. 

Let it be noted that the affinity with Brito-Celtic 
claimed above is not that of mere general relationship and 
similarity existing between two branch languages of the 
old Aryan stock ; but the affinity of distinct and imme- 
diate descent. The language now called English, it is 
believed, possessed them not in its earlier forms. It 
borrowed them bodily from that Celtic speech it en- 
countered in Britain, just as it has borrowed hundreds of 
others from the Latin. If it did not so borrow them, by 
all means let it be shown. 

The Welsh, of all the Celtic dialects, as might be ex- 
pected from the greater intercourse of the Cymry, has 
yielded the largest number of derivatives, and its forms 
are the forms most closely imitated. The above list is 
the result of much sifting, and repeated examination of 
each separate term, and is presented with some degree 
of confidence in the Brito-Celtic character of nearly the 
whole, with slight reservation respecting a few, among 
which may be mentioned : " basin," which some may 
prefer deducing from Fr. bassin ; " cope," of whose Teu- 
tonic kinship there exist some suspicious indications ; 
" harlot," apparently disclaimed by all languages, ex- 
cept the Cornish ; " denizen," which some derive from 
old Fr. douaizon, or deinzein. 

1 Ed. Dr. Smith, 1S62, p. 45. 



CELTIC OF ENGLISH MAINLY CYMRIC. 363 

In this list we have included all those Celtic vocables 
in our present standard English we wish to rely upon as 
directly evidencing in favour of our argument. They are not 
given, be it again remarked, as the whole of the Celtic now 
found in modern English, but as the approximate whole 
of the Celtic wkich coalesced with the English in Britain, 
and has survived. As will be seen hereafter, the English 
contains not a little Celtic which it has received through 
Latin, possibly in Britain, possibly elsewhere, but this is 
not taken as evidence of race-intercourse and admixture. 
The words in our list, at least, have remained to this day ; 
how many more survive, in situations less prominent — in 
the dialects of the widely separated provinces of England,, 
and in the obsolete vocabulary of ancient records only now 
beginning to see the light — we shall by and by have oppor- 
tunity briefly to discuss. 

It is pertinent here to observe, and the philosophic his- 
torian would deem it a point of no slight significance 
— that the above list is in some degree an index to the 
social .condition, as well as to the mental idiosyncracies,. 
of the people it commemorates. Here are few terms used 
in law, art, science, or government. The Britons who 
amalgamated with their conquerors had been taken out of 
these spheres of thought and action. Their power to 
impregnate the intrusive speech would be the power of 
humble daily intercourse, while engaged in domestic, agri- 
cultural, or military toil. The superior civilization they 
had inherited, their nobler faith and carefully digested 
laws, would doubtless at first have forced upon their 
Anglo-Saxon masters a vast number of technical terms 
and formula?, names of objects and places, of customs, 
festivals and offices ; but these were speedily got rid of 
when a Saxon priesthood grew up with sufficient learning 
to adapt their own strong and rugged speech to the new 



364 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

inheritance of ideas on which they had entered. We have 
already seen how Celtic terms were carefully excluded 
from the earlier written Anglo-Saxon. The Vocabularies 
of Archbishop -ZElfric, and the Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies 
of the 1 ith century, furnish evidence of this ; and the literary 
history of King Alfred — notwithstanding that this noblest 
of all rulers was much under the influence of a Celtic 
scholar, the Welshman Asser — conclusively shows that he 
bent all his energies to constitute his own much- 
beloved Anglo-Saxon the vehicle of all the ideas of his 
time. 

But, while, under royal authority, the revived Anglo- 
Saxon scholarship of that age rejected the " barbarisms" 
which had crept in, the same barbarisms continued to hold 
their own in the language of daily life—in the market- 
place, in the corn-field, in the smithy ; and by and by, like 
a deeper current concealed for a time from view, burst 
again to the surface. Accordingly in the written literature 
of the " Semi-Saxon " period, two centuries after Alfred, we 
meet with a large number of purely Celtic words. To these 
we shall in due time return. 

The train of our argument leads us in the next place 
to glance at the Celtic materials found in the living dialects 
of the English language. 

(2.) Celtic Words in the living Dialects of England. 

In the " nooks and corners " and over the wide plains of 
our country are tens of thousands of people whose scanty 
vocabulary contains hundreds of vocables which the 
columns of no standard dictionary have ever contained, 
and amongst these are numerous remains, pure and genuine 
as chips of diamonds, of the Ancient British tongue. 
Admirable is the unconscious fidelity of these sons of toil 



CELTIC OF ENGLISH MAINLY CYMRIC. 365 

in handing down from father to son these precious memo- 
rials of the past ! l 

To what extent the Celtic of the dialects can be claimed 
as British contributions — i.e., contributions made since the 
Anglo-Saxon conquest — is hard to determine. Some can 
be traced through the Latin to the misty pre-historic times 
when from some sources now untraceable Celtic drops were 
distilled into all the Indo-European tongues — some through 
the Anglo-Saxon — some through German. But many- 
others find no reflections in these languages. A multitude 
confess, by orthography and significance, to relationship 
with the Cymraeg. This, as might be expected, is notably 
the case in Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, York- 
shire, Shropshire, Wilts, and — what was formerly termed 
" West Wales " — Devon and Cornwall. 

The Celtic local or geographical names, as we shall by 
and by have occasion to show, still in great numbers 
remain, clinging with far greater tenacity to the soil than 
do the strongest fortresses or the most renowned cities. 
But with a fixedness which is still more wonderful, because 
under conditions apparently less allied to permanency, 
pure Celtic idioms and vocables manage from age to age 
to survive, defying the purism of lexicographers, defying 
the withering breath of time, hiding themselves for safe 
shelter amid the obscurities of peasant life, and with in- 

1 Abundant materials in proof may be found in the following, among 
many other contributions of laborious collectors : — Tim Dobbin ; Tin- 
Lancashire Witches; Carr's Craven Dialect; The Dialect of Leeds and its 
Neighbourhood; Halliwell's Diet, of Archaic and Provincial Words; 
Grose's Glossary of Provincial Words; The Cornish Provincial Dialect; 
Dickinson's Words and Phrases of Cumberland; Barnes' Hwomely Rhymes 
in the Dorset Dialect; Baker's Northamptonshire Words and Phrases; 
Evans's Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs ; Cooper's Glossary of 
the Provincialisms of Sussex ; Akerman's Provincial Words, &c., of Wilt- 
shire; Clark's John Noakcs and Mary Styles, in the Essex Dialect. 



366 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

genuity like that of instinct, disguising themselves in such 
voluminous drapery of Saxon grammatical forms, as de- 
mand all the skill and patience of the philologist to 
unloose. 

Great has been the industry of collectors of dialectic 
words and phrases ! But great also has been their neglect 
of etymology. They have collected words, apparently 
without a thought of the world of ethnological interest 
belonging to them. Even so useful a work as Halliwell's 
Dictionary of A rchaic and Provincial Words loses half its 
value to the thorough student through this omission — an 
omission, by so zealous a labourer in early English, 
scarcely to be accounted for. 1 

To give a collection of all Celtic dialectic words dis- 
coverable, were to compose a dictionary. We must select 
a corner of the wide field, and give the result of our 
gleaning as a specimen of the whole. Let us turn to 
Lancashire, and touch also upon a side of Cumberland. 
In Lancashire, almost all the words are found to assimilate 
to the Welsh dialect of Celtic. 

Celtic in the Dialect of Lancashire.. 
Awf, a horrid person W. wfft, interj. shame ! fie ! 

Bam, mocking tale, gibe Armoric, bamcin, to deceive. 

Bitter-bump, the bittern W. bwmp-y-gors, " the bwmp of the 

moor," the bittern ; first word ex- 
presses the bittern's hollow cry. 



1 An occasional etymological note, however, is given by Mr. Halli- 
well. The following account of the first use of a purely Celtic word is 
scarcely reliable : — " The word pen was first introduced into Cornwall, 
where the Phoenicians had a colony who worked the tin mines. Hence 
we have many names in Cornwall which begin with pen." (Diet. <f 
Arch, and Provin. Words, sub verb. Pen.) Many names beginning with 
pen exist in Wales and Brittany. Did the " Phoenicians " also import 
these ? And what special qualification had the Phoenicians for in- 
troducing the word pen, a word which essentially belonged to the 
speech of the people who inhabited Cornwall, probably, long before the 
Phoenicians saw it ? 



CELTIC WORDS IN ENGLISH DIALECTS. 



367 



Bodikin, a bodkin 
Boggart, an apparition 
Bvaggot, spiced ale 
Brawse, brambles, furze 
Bree, to fear a person 
Byes, cattle 

•Cam, to make crooked ) 

Cammed, crooked ) 

Costril, a small barrel 

Craddy, Craddins — " to lead 
craddies " is to perform some 
bold, adventurous trick or feat 

Crom, to stuff 

Crony, a companion, intimate 

Bum, the fastening by which 
gates are held 

Foomart, wild cat 

Frump, to sulk, mock 

■Gar, force 

•Ginnil, a narrow passage 

■Gorbelly, large bellied 

Cfreece, a slight ascent 

■Gcalo, hcalo, modest, shy 
Harr, to snarl like a dog 
Hitter, keen, daring 
Huff, huft, to treat scornfully 
Jim, jimp, neat, spruce 
Keatker, cradle 
Keen, to burn 
Kncp, to bite readily 
Know, a rise, a brow 

Lake, to idle, play truant 
Lither, to thicken broth 
Lobb, a heavy, clumsy fellow 
Luvcr, open chimney 
Mullock, dirt, rubbish 



W. bidog, dirk, bayonet. 

W. bwgan, hobgoblin. 

W. bragod, spiced ale. 

W. brwyn, rushes. 

W. braw, fear, terror. 

W. buivck, cow; Arm. bu ; Ir. bo; 

Corn, buck, cow. 
W. cam, crooked ; camu, to make 

crooked. 
W. costrcl, a bottle, jar. 
W. gicrhydri, heroic action. 



W. cromil, the crop of a fowl. 
\V. carcnydd, kindred; car, friend. 
W. divrn, a hand clenched, a fist, 

a handle. 
W. ffwlbert, the polecat. 
W. ffromi, to be angry, in a pet. 
W. gyru, to drive, urge, force. 
W. cynnil, sparing, saving, close. 
W. gor, extreme. 
W. gris, a stair, step (this from 

Lat. gradus). 
W. gwylaidd, modest, diffident. 
W. her, challenge. 
W. kydcr, confidence. 
\V. zifft, for shame, fie. 
W. gwymp, smart, fair. 
W. cader, cradle. 
W. cyncu, to kindle. 
\V. cnoi, to bite, masticate. 
W. cwnni, to rise; cwimg, enwe, 

summit, mound. 
W. llccku, to hide, skulk. 
W. llitk, mash ; Gael, kite, gruel. 
W. llob, a blockhead. 
W. llwfer, chimney. 1 
W. mwlwck, chaff, sweepings. 



Whence the name of the " Louvre," Paris, from its chimney. 



;68 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Oandurth, afternoon 



Peigh, to cough 
Pilder, to wither 
Pine, a finch 



Beeak, rick, shriek, scold 

Rhiggot, a gutter 

Scrannil, a lean, bony person 

Seely, weak in body 

Shum, dung 

Scut, the tail of a hare 

Threave, a crowd 

Ted, to spread abroad as hay 

Tin, to shut to the door 

Tinned, shut 

Toyne, shut ) 

Toynt, shut ) 

Trest, a strong bench 

Turnil, an oval tub 

Wear, to lay out money 

IVherr, very sour 

Witherin, large, powerful 

Wy-kawve, a she-calf 

Wyzles, stalks of potato 

Yeandnrth, before noon 



W. anterth, morning. Can o in 
" oandurth " be the Celtic prep. 
o, " from " — " separate, or pro- 
ceeding from the morning" ? 
W. pesweh, to cough ; pych, id. 
W. pallder, a failure, abortiveness. 
W.pinc, a finch; given to the bird 
from the cry he utters. Germ. 
finite, whence Engl. " finch." 
W. crech, ysgrech, shriek. 
W. rhig, a groove. 
W. asgyrnog, bony, lean. 
W. sal, ill, frail; salw, id. 
W. sarn, stable litter. 
W. avt, tail. 

W. torf, crowd, multitude (turba.) 
W. teddu, to spread out. 
^ W. tynu, to draw. 
( W. tyn, drawn close, tight. 

W. the same 

W. trawst, a beam. 

W. twnel, a tub or vat. 

W. gwario, to spend, disburse. 

W. chtverw, bitter, sharp to taste. 

W. utlir, terrible, awful. 

W. hi, she. 

W. gwydd, small trees, brushwood. 

W. anterth, morning. 



This list might be largely augmented. All doubtful 
words, and words not properly "dialectic," have been 
rejected. Some, hitherto approved by respectable autho- 
rities have been winnowed out, as not being clearly Celtic, 
or not properly belonging to the " unwritten " language. 
Dade (used in Lancashire for holding a child by the arm 
to teach him to walk), garth, lurch, natter, sow (for head), 
can hardly be derived, as Mr. Davies thinks, 1 from W. 
dodiy gardd, llcrchio, naddu, siol ; nor can fag-end, fog, 



1 See Transactions of Philolog. Soc. 1855, p. 210. 



CUMBERLAND DIALECT. 369 

garth, lurch (which is nothing but lurk), hap, muggy, pelt, 
pick to dart), reawt (which is only a form of pronouncing 
"road", spree, tackle, treddles, whop, be considered as 
words belonging to the Lancashire, nor, some of them, 
indeed, to any " dialect," and we are inclined to believe 
that of the above, only lurch (from llcrchu, to skulk), pelt 
(from pkl, a ball), pick (from pig, a point, dart), muggy 
(from mvog, smoke), can be safely traced to Celtic. 

In Lancashire, it is seen, almost all the Celtic words 
are from the Cymric. In Cumberland they seem to have 
descended in about equal degree from the Gaelic, or 
Erse. 

Celtic in the Dialect of Cumberland. 
Bed, to bellow Ir. bad, the mouth (bawl). 

Boggle, to be brought to a stand, W. bug, hobgoblin ; bwgwl, threat. 

a ghost 
Cammed, crooked. W. cam, crooked ; Corn. Ir. Arm. id. 

Corp, a dead body W. corph, body, dead body. Lat. 

Gope, to talk foolishly Ir. gob, the mouth (gabble). 

Gowl, to weep or cry Ir. guil, to weep ; W. wylo, to weep. 

Lam, to beat Ir. lamk, the hand ; W. Haw, id. 

Marrow, equal Ir. mar, like to ; W. par, pair. Lat. 

Rag, to abuse, scold Ir. rag, abuse; bally-rag, town or 

street abuse ; W. regit, curse. 
Sad, heavy, thick W. sad, firm, sober. 

That Cumberland should present remains of the Gaelic 
as well as of the Cymric Celtic is perfectly natural, and 
accordant with history. The Scots bordering on the 
Ancient Cumbrian kingdom were from Ireland, and would 
contribute both to the population and speech of Cumbria 
from the North, while the Cymri did the same from the 
South. The two streams of men and languages in time 
met and coalesced, and we have proof of their admixture 
in the dialect of the present day. '1 hat the language of 
the Cumbrian Kingdom in the 6th century, however, was 
substantially the same as that of Wales, is proved by the 

B B 



37° THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

remains of Aneiirin, and Llywarch Hen, both Cumbrian 
bards. The people of Cumbria, also, in their times of 
misfortune, invariably fled to Wales as their natural and 
ever available refuge. 

The above samples of dialects must suffice. Similar 
contributions might be drawn from half-a-dozen other 
districts, all equally pregnant with the same kind of 
evidence. Those of Essex, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, East 
Yorkshire, are less charged with Celtic, a fact antecedently 
probable from the testimony of history concerning settle- 
ments in those parts. The whole district of " West Wales," 
and of the Marches of Wessex and Mercia, on the other 
hand, are rich in Celtic. 

What, now, is the value of these dialectic facts ? Do 
they not intimate very plainly that a subjugated race 
could never have so instilled its vocabulary into that of its 
conquerors as to form a vital portion of it after the lapse 
of many hundred years, unless the two peoples had long 
lived in intimate intercourse for a great length of time r 
Large bodies of Britons must have remained on the soil 
in the various capacities of small holders by permission, 
as ceorls, or servitors, tillers of the fields, and handicrafts- 
men. They must by degrees have merged into the 
dominant race, and with them, their language, in its 
attained portions, into the language of that race. No 
other hypothesis can explain a phenomenon so authentic 
and significant. Such a phenomenon never occurred in 
the history of mankind without antecedents such as are 
here presumed, and in our historical chapter conclusively 
proved. 1 The Celtic words we now find in the standard 
English and its dialects form a vital portion of the 
people's speech. They entwine themselves around the 

1 See, especially, Sections vii. and ix. (pp. 210 and 304), ante. 



VALUE OF THE FACTS GIVEN. 371 

most cherished customs, and are the familiars of the most 
sacred associations. They bear the air of belonging as 
much to the soil as the peasantry which loves to articulate 
them, or the oak of the forest. Surely they are not there 
as sole memorials of their first owners. They are but 
audible and visible companions of the now undistinguish- 
able British blood which throbs in the veins of those who 
have them on their tongues ! To assume that the words 
of an ancient language have continued to be spoken, 
while the nation to which they belonged had been wholly 
expelled or extirpated, is to assume a marvel greatly 
more unaccountable than the amalgamation for which we 
argue. 

The comparative fewness of the Celtic vocables sur- 
viving argues nothing' as to the proportion of Ancient 
Britons which had merged into the mass of Anglo-Saxon 
society. Twenty to one might be Celtic among the 
people, as in the case of Gaul under the Romans, while 
the language became all but completely new; or, on the 
other hand, the conquerors might adopt wholesale the 
speech of the discomfited race, as the Danes did in 
England, and the Franks in Gaul. When conquerors are 
eager to establish their own language, as was the case 
with the Anglo-Saxons, whatever the proportion of the 
conquered incorporated, their language is as a whole under 
ban, and can gain admission into the authorized speech 
only by subtle methods, and small unguarded entrances. 

From the day the Anglo-Saxons became virtually 
masters, everything favoured the process whereby the tide 
of the new speech overwhelmed the old. From that time 
till now the precious words which, notwithstanding .ill 
difficulties, lodged themselves in the ruling speech, have 
been gradually disappearing; and yet there are many 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, still in being, and likely to 

BB 2 



3J2 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

continue. What, then, must have been their number at 
first ? And what must have been the number of the 
people who, under the circumstances, could have secured 
entrance for so many ! 

The fact, however, must be kept in mind that the 
subjugation of the Britons was far from being a prompt 
achievement > They and their language lived concurrently 
with the Anglo-Saxons in parts of England for many ages 
after the Saxon and Anglian kingdoms were first estab- 
lished. The Ancient British speech was under ban only 
in those parts where Saxon power was completely domi- 
nant, and through the space of two centuries those parts 
over wide England were few. It was by slow degrees that 
the Britons were brought under, silenced, and incorporated, 
and this circumstance favoured both admixture of race and 
admixture of language. 1 

(3.) Celtic words once found in the written English, but now 
wholly discontinued. 

Some short time ago the writer made a pilgrimage to 
the site of the once celebrated city of Caerlleon [Isca 
SiluYuni] the reputed seat of King Arthur and the Round 
Table. There, in addition to a few faint indications in the 
external aspect of the place of its former renown and 
magnificence — fragments of Roman pottery, portions of 
the city wall, the " mound " of the castle, the circular 
hollow where the Roman amphitheatre stood — he found in 
the small museum of the local Antiquarian Society a 
number of disentombed British and Roman remains of 
some interest— a partial resurrection of the great past of 
Britain after many centuries of oblivion. It occurred to 
him that, in like manner, the old British words found in 
the early literature ot Saxon England, long entombed and 

1 See pp. 235—366. 



CELTIC IN OBSOLETE ENGLISH. 373 

forgotten, but now gradually being brought to light, and 
curiously examined, are exponents to us of a former state 
of things. 

Notice has already been taken of the comparative 
freedom from Celtic terms of the earliest Anglo-Saxon 
literature {temp. CaBdmon, Bede, Alfred, JElfric), and the 
reason of that freedom was conjectured. Two hundred 
years later, the Anglo-Saxon tongue put on a very dif- 
ferent appearance. It became marred, or beautified — as 
opinion may incline to pronounce — with a multitude of 
foreign terms — Celtic, which had long floated in the 
vulgar speech, and Norman-French, which had come across 
the Channel and conquered the Court and the elite of the 
English nation. The language had now reached the 
stage which we are accustomed to designate " semi- 
Saxon." The new importations were more Norman- 
French than Gallo-Celtic. These had affected the contents 
and forms of the English language even more materially 
than the men who had brought them had affected the race- 
character of the English nation. But Celtic elements 
from other quarters had also come in. 

We have now to give specimens of these, that is, in so 
far as they have disappeared from the modern English 
dictionary. Dragged into light from rare and ancient 
MSS. in the Museums and Public Libraries of the king- 
dom, though few, they arc still as authentic and vital as 
the wheat grains preserved in the folds of an Egyptian 
mummy, and tell as true a tale of forgotten ages. 

The following list, again, is only given as containing 
specimens. Of the Celtic contents of the English in the 
semi-Saxon period, a much larger number has been col- 
lected than our space will admit. Mr. Coleridge's little 
Dictionary, 1 which has been carefully consulted and found 

1 Diet, of Oldest Words in Engl. Lang., Lond. 1863. 



374 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



of service, strange to say, hardly marks a dozen words 
through its whole length as having their origin in the 
Celtic tongues. But this absence of breadth and minute- 
ness of scholarship marks many other recent works on 
Early English. 



(<7.) Celtic words, from different English Authors, now obsolete. 



Old English (now obs.) 
Accle, to seal, hide (Lat. celo) 

Ac-ore, grieve, make sorry 

Acorye, chastened, punished 

A rvel, a funeral, funeral cake 

Asele, seal — (same as acele) 

Atprenche, to deceive 

Avoth, take in, hear 

Awene, promp^to think 

Bali, belly 

Bast, of illegitimate birth 

Bay, in the sense of " to bait " 

Bemothered, confused (cogn. with 

mither) ; contr. "bothered" 
Bick, fight 

Blin, tired, fatigued 
Bolkcn, to belch 
Bollen, swollen 



Celtic Origin. 
W. cell, a hiding place; edit, to 

hide; Corn, cedes. 
W. cur, anxiety, pain. 
W. id. 

W. arwyl, funeral solemnity. 
W. celu, to hide. 
W. prancio, to play tricks. 
W. yfed, drink, imbibe. 
W. awen, the poetic muse, genius. 
W. bol, belly ; Corn, bol, id. 
W. has, low, mean ; Arm. baz, id. 
W. bivyd, food. 
W. byddar, deaf; byddaru, deafen. 

W. bicra, to quarrel, fight, fr. pigo ; 

Corn, piga ; Arm. pica, id. 
W. blino, to tire. 
W. bol, belly. 
W. The same. 



1 Our sources, with one or two exceptions, have been the following: 
Havelok the Dane, Ed. by Sir F. Madden, for the Roxburgh Club ; The 
Owl and Niglitingale, Ed. by Mr. Wright, for the Percy Society ; 
Specimens of Lyric Poetry, temp. Edw. I., by Mr. Wright: King 
Alysaunder, in Weber's Metrical Romances, Ed. by Mr. H. Coleridge; 
The Land of Cokaygne, in Hickes's Thesaurus, vol. i.; The Life of St. 
Margaret, ib. ; Layamon's Brut, Ed. by Sir F. Madden, 1S47; The Ormu- 
luni, Ed. by Mr. White, three vols., 1S47; A Moral Ode, Hickes's 
Thesaurus, vol. i.; Life of Thomas Beket, Ed. by Mr. Black, for the Percy 
Society; Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, Ed. by Hearne, 1S10 ; Frag- 
ments in Harleian MSS., Brit. Mus., Nos. 913 and 2277; Vocabularies, 
Ed. by Mr. Wright for Jos. Mayer, Esq., 1S57. 



CELTIC IN OBSOLETE ENGLISH. 375 

Old English {now obs.) Celtic Origin. 

Braid, treacherous (rel. to A.-Sax. W. brad, treachery; Corn, prat, a 

praet, craft) cunning trick. 

Bulics, bellows W. bol, belly. 

Capull-hyde, horse-hide W. ceffyl, a horse. 

Carke, to pine away W. cur, anxiety, pain, curio, to pine 

away. 
Crouthe, fiddle W. crwth, fiddle ; Corn, crowd. 

Dizele, secret, concealed W. dygel, concealed, rfy, intens. edit, 

conceal. 
Earth-grine, earthquake W. daear-gryn, earthquake; crynu, 

to tremble. 
Perth, road (A.-Sax. ford, a shal- W, ffordd, road ; Corn, fordh. 
low in a stream) (Ferth, for " road," is Celtic usage, 

whatever the ult. derivation). 
Frith, a wood, copse W.ffridd, forest, wood. 

Fyke, to deceive, flatter (fudge) W. ffugio, to dissemble ; Com. fitgio • 

Ir. bog. 
Gaff, an iron hook W. gafael, hold (Fr. gaffe). 

Giis, a step, a stair W. gris, a step (Lat. gressus). 

Gain, elegant (gainly) W. cain, bright, fair; can, white; 

Corn, can ; Ir. can ; Arm. can. 
G ruche, to murmur, grumble (pro- W. grwgnacli, grumble. 

bably early form of " grudge " 
Haltren, clothes W. di-hatryd, to doff one's clothes; 

di, privative. 
Kendel, a litter of cats W. cencdl, progeny, family. 

Ledron, thief, robber W. Ueidr (pi. lladron) thief; (Fr. 

larron ; Lat. latro). 
Ma, more W. intvy, more. 

Panne, head ) W. pen, head; Corn, pen; Arm: 

Puune, ib. j /^»«. 

Pretta, to deceive (A.-Sax. prcat, W. praith, an act, a trick ; Corn. 

craft) /J'"* 1 , a cunning trick. 

Pull:, a pool (.-1. -Sax. /,('/, a pool) W. pivll, a pool; Corn, pol ; Arm. 

poul ; lr. poll; Manx, poy!, a 

pool, a pit. 
Rhoxle, grunt W. rhoclii, grunt. 

Shruke, wither W. cryclut, wither, shrink. 

Teh, ill-humour W. dig, angry; taiog, rude; Gael. 

taoig, a passion. 
Terry, to vex, incite W. tacru, to contend, urge. 



376 THE EEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Old English {now obs.) Celtic Origin. 

Treyc, sorrow (A. -Sax. trcga, YV. tralia, oppression. 

vexation) 
XJnplyc, unfold (un, priv.) \V. plygu, fold, bend; Corn, plegye, 

plait. 

A hundred years' advance brings us to the age of 
Chaucer — " the father of English poetry." After a hard 
heat of reading in the Ca?iterbury Tales, one is startled by 
the reflection that Spenser has called him the " pure well 
of English undefiled!" If Norman-French can defile, 
surely Chaucer daubed the " English " sadly enough. But 
there must be some truth in Spenser's judgment, and we 
can therefore conclude that Chaucer, instead of running 
with the fashion of the day in making a display of Norman- 
French, moderated the mania, and aimed at restoring the 
Saxon to its proper place. But Chaucer moved among, 
and wrote for, persons of quality and rank ; he was there- 
fore bound to some extent to honour the speech patronised 
by courtly people. That he was conscious of the corrup- 
tion of the language and of the want of reformation he 
gives frequent proof. Of the want of uniformity in writing 
the English he complains in his Troilus and Creseide : — 

" And for there is so great diversite 
In English, and in writing of our tongue; 
So pray I God that none mis-write thee, 
Ne thee mis-metre for defaut of tongue." 

Amid the confusion, and the struggle, on the one hand 
to corrupt, and on the other to restore, the English, did 
any Celtic terms escape destruction in the ag - e of Chaucer ? 
Very many. We have culled the following from the poet's 
pages 1 as amongst Celtic words then in the English 
language, but which are no longer there. 

1 Chaucer's Works, Bell's Ed. Eight vols. 1854. 



ENGLISH OF CHAUCER. 



377 






(6.) Celtic Words in Chaucer, now obsolete. 

Augrym ; " augrym-stones " were W. awgrym, a sign, hint. W. is 
counters or calculi for facili- derived from Lat. augur, but 
tating calculations the form in Chaucer is a copy 

of the W. 
Bollen, bulged W. bol, belly. 

Uragat, a drink made with honey W. bragod, a sweet liquor ; brag, 

malt. 
W. brock, din, tumult ; brochi, 

bluster. 
\V. ceffyl, a horse ; Ir. capall. 
W. cortcg, a boat, a coracle. 
W. caroli, to sing ; cur, a choir. 
W. mas, ecstasy; maws, delight. 
W. mcdd, mead, drink made with 
honey ; Gr. p.tOv. 
Nyfle, a trifle, unsubstantial W. ttyfel, niwl, a mist, fog. 
thing 

W. eos, nightingale ; cosi, to sing 

like the nightingale. 
W. pib, a pipe; pibau, to sound 

the horn 
W. rliys, ardency; rhyswr, com- 
batant. 
Rote, a musical instrument, to W. crwth, a violin. 
" sing by rote," to sing along 
with an instrument 
Scrivenlich, after the manner of W. ' serif ettu, to write. 

a writer 
Strolhir (prop, name), valley in W. yst rad, a dale ; and hir, long. 
North of England. 

None of these had reached the English through Latin or 
Norman-French. They were borrowed from the Cymric 
language, and though now lost to the English — with one 
or two exceptions with a change, as " mead " for meth — 
are to this day living portions of the language of Wales. 
But for Chaucer we might not have known that such frag- 
ments of the old Celtic speech had played on the lips of 
the courtiers of Edward III. The tongue of the educated 
Englishman nowhere articulates them in our day. 



Brokking, throbbing, quivering 

'Capil, a horse (not fr. Fr. cheval) 
Carrik, a ship 
Karolc, to dance and sing 
Mase, a wild fancy, ecstasy 
Meth, a liquor made with honey 

trifle, 

•Ocy, the nightingale's note 

Poupe, to make a noise with 

horn 
Rees, an exploit, eager action 



378 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

We have to remark in concluding these last sub- 
sections : 

i. That if these few old chroniclers and rhymers, whose 
writings, along with Chaucer's, we have been putting 
under contribution, have furnished so many Celtic 
remains when the language they represent is the 
language of the more cultured class, then the vernacular 
of the common people of England at the time must be 
presumed to have contained a much larger amount of 
materials of like nature. The proportion of Celtic terms 
to the total of the vocabulary of the peasant class, was, 
therefore, very large. Of the 40,000 usable words in 
our present English, an educated man is supposed to 
have at command about 10,000, while a rustic rarely 
learns beyond 400. l We conclude that the common 
people of the semi-Saxon period, however great the 
zeal of the higher classes to cultivate an Anglo-Norman 
speech, had a vocabulary in very large proportion Celtic. 

2. The critical student will also observe with regard to 
the first list — the British- Celtic of the modern dictionary 
— that a large proportion of the vocables therein contained 
must have been assimilated since the semi-Saxon period 
— otherwise the vocabulary of that period would have 
contained them. Now the interval from the 14th to the 19th 
century was not a time of much intercourse between the 
English and the Welsh, or any others of the Celtic stock — 
not of such intercourse, we mean, as would transfer many 
Celtic terms into the English. The first portion of that 
period was a time of utter alienation between Wales and 
England. Whence, then, came those Celtic words, of 
clearly British origin, added during that time r There can 
be no difficulty in answering the question. They came 
from the lips of the common people of England ! There 
1 Comp. Trof. Max. Mailer's Lect. on Science of Language, p. 26S. 



CELTIC OF ENGLISH CHIEFLY CYMRIC. 379 

they had continued to play ever since their first appropria- 
tion, and there they continue to this day. And the next 
coming age, under the guidance of a taste for the simpler 
archaic dialectic treasures of the language, Saxon or 
otherwise, will admit many more such materials — not 
indeed because they are Celtic, but because they belong 
to the home and heart speech of the English people. 
There are many, many hundreds of them in the various 
counties of North, West, and South, waiting for admission; 
and, fortunately, the Latinising" rage of Johnson is not a 
failing of the literary men of our times. 

3. It is to be noted that the great majority of British- 
Celtic words tabulated, whether of the standard English, 
of the dialects, or of the obsolete printed vocabulary, 
belong to the Cymric branch. This is of some moment 
to the solidity of our argument. Facts here again 
echo to antecedent probability. Probability, planting its 
argument on the intimations of history, says : If there exist 
Ancient British terms at all in the English language, they 
must be Cymric more than Irish, and Irish more than 
Armoric (an offshoot of Cymric for the most part), because 
contact with the Cymry (including the Cumbrians and 
"West Wallians") was more close and frequent than with 
the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland, and contact with these 
was more frequent than with the Armoricans. The Lloe- 
grians and the Brython were also of the same branch as 
the Cymry. These were completely incorporated in early 
times, and not improbably are partly represented by 
the blood of the West of England, including Devon and 
Cornwall. All the nation of the Cymry, except those who 
fell in war, retired into Wales, or crossed over to Armorica,. 
were also by degrees incorporated ; their language there- 
fore might well permeate in larger measure the Saxon 
tongue than the other branch of Celtic. With this. 



.380 TPIE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

reasoning, the phenomena of modern- and old English 
completely agree. 

4. Some acute Anti-Celtic reasoners have started the 
following objection : — " If things are so — if admixture of 
language is proof of admixture of race (which is granted), 
and if incorporation of the Ancient Britons has carried 
Celtic elements into the English language, then, by parity 
of reasoning, since the English and the Romans have, 
doubtless, in some measure merged into the nation of the 
Cymry, there ought to be a corresponding tincture of these 
languages in the AVelsh of to-day." The argument is 
perfectly fair and logical ; but its effect, though expected 
to be crushing, is perfectly innocuous. We accept it 
without qualification, with all its consequences. Unhappily, 
it assumes what is not the fact, viz., that " the Welsh of 
to-day" is an immaculate Celtic tongue. 

The Welsh people have, unquestionably, received no 
small admixture of Roman and Saxon blood ; and the 
simple answer to the above objection is^that the AVelsh 
language has received a very considerable infusion of Latin 
and Anglo-Saxon words. 1 Nay, more ; the AVelsh people 
are not free from Scandinavian, Flemish, and Norman- 
French admixtures, as proved by history, physiology, and 
proper names ; and the AVelsh language is not free from a 
corresponding tincture of Danish, Flemish, and French. 

1 Even so early as the time of Aneurin (See Gododiit, vv. 630, 26S> 
231, 743, 629, 191) the following Latin corruptions, among numerous 
others, occur: ariant (argentum) ; calan (kalendic) ; fossawd (fossa) 
periglawr, the word for priest, one to stand between the soul and 
" danger " (from periculum) ; gwydr (vitrum); plwm (plumbum). We 
find in this early age traces even of Anglo-Saxon corruptions. The 
bard Meigant, circ. a.d. 620, uses the word plwde (see Myv. Arch, of 
Wales, i. 160) for a bloody field, or blood, which he could only obtain 
from A. -Sax. Mod, blood, blodig, bloody; and Aneurin has the word 
bludwe (v. 142) for what appears to have been the battle-field. No 
Celtic dialect now contains this corruption. 



CORRUPTIONS IN WELSH. 38 1 

The school of Dr. W. O. Pughe (who, in ignorance of 
the teaching of comparative philology, seemed to consider 
the Welsh a language fcr se, separate and distinct 
from all other languages, developing all its forms and 
compounds from its own exhaustless store of roots) cannot 
well brook the doctrine that the Welsh is largely Latinized 
and Anglicised. There is no word which their convenient 
etymological legerdemain will not at a touch resolve into 
Cymric " roots," however obviously Latin, Greek, or Saxon 
its origin. It is impossible to argue gravely with people 
who will, ex. gr. derive cgkvys, W. for church {iKuX-qo-La), 
from such Welsh "roots" as eg, "what opens," and glwys, 
" fair, beautiful " — "because the church opens its doors to- 
the holy ! " The science of philology is now fast dispelling" 
such linguistic folly. 1 By a rigid analysis of the materials 
of separate languages, it discovers what elements are 
common to many, or to a few, and finds here the safe 
principle of classification and key of relationship. It 
proves beyond contradiction that there is no tongue on 
earth which is a language per se, distinct from all other 
tongues, and evolving all its forms from its own resources. 
Dr. W. O. Pughe, the learned author of the chief Welsh 
dictionary extant, seems to have proceeded on the quiet 
assumption that the AVelsh was such a lang-uage, and his 
great work contains many hundreds of derivations from 
Welsh "roots" which are palpably fanciful and misleading. 2 

1 Few scholars will question the correctness of Mr. Max Mailer's 
statement that " large numbers of words have found their way from 
Latin,"' and even German, into the Celtic dialects, and " these have 
frequently been taken by Celtic enthusiasts for original words, from 
which German and Latin might, in their turn, be derived." Lectures on 
the Science of Language, First series, p. 200. Our note p. 3S0, but more 
at length, Appendix A, will supply proof of this. 

- Mr. Geo, the publisher, of Denbigh, has in the press a new edition 
of Pughe, which it is hoped will be conducted under the guidance of 
competent scholarship, and be brought up to the present slate of know- 
ledge. 1S73. 



3 82 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

The long history of the corruption of the Cymric 
language needs not detailing in these pages. Its stages, 
of course, are Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman, and 
English. The language has some few elements common 
to it with the Latin which can hardly be termed either 
corruptions or borrowing's, since they seem to have been 
equally the property of each from a very early age, and to 
have been borrowed or derived by each from that primitive 
Aryan source which has tinged so many of the European 
languages, Classic, Teutonic, and Celtic alike. Hence also 
the Welsh, like the Irish, has many words kindred to 
A. -Saxon and German, as, fem. gwen, fair, white, beautiful ; 
Anglo-Saxon, cwcn, woman, queen, whence Eng. queen : 
cor, a choir, Anglo-Saxon c/ior, a chorus ; Germ, clwr, a 
chorus : W. main, to grind, melin, a mill ; Anglo-Saxon, 
miln, a mill: Germ, maiden, to grind, vi'uhlc, a mill: 
W. poll, people; Germ, fiebel: W. clock, a bell, Germ. 
glocke, a bell, Anglo-Saxon, clucgc, a bell, &c, which 
elements appear to be as congenial and native to the 
Teutonic as to the Celtic — to the Celtic as the Teutonic. 
But since the Celtic is on the whole invested with more 
features of a venerable antiquity than the Teutonic, if 
advantage must in this matter be claimed by either, the 
Celtic must have it. 

But multitudes of vocables are now found in the Welsh, 
and arc in all dictionaries assumed to be properly Welsh 
words, which no modern philologist can fail to recognise 
as foreign. Most of them belong to the Latin, and to the 
classic period in Latin. Some are post-classic, and belong- 
to ecclesiastical nomenclature. But many are Teuton, 
derived from the Anglo-Saxon of the Conquest, and many 
more are immediately derived from the English, inherited 
by that language from Latin, Greek, Saxon, or Norman- 
French. Not a few are words which have passed directly 



CORRUPTIONS IN WELSH. 383 

from the Norman-French, without apparent contact with 
the English. Such seem to be anturio, Fr. aventurer; 
cessail, Fr. goussel ; errs, Fr. creseau ; dedzaydd, Fr. deduit ; 
gwersyll, Fr. guerre-sella ; ncgcs, Fr. negoce, &c. 

On account of the interest of this subject to philologists 
we have taken some trouble to form a reliable list of 
words, usually considered Welsh, which are derived from 
the different sources above enumerated ; but to save space, 
the biographies of doubtful, or apparently doubtful words, 
tracing the various phonetic changes they have undergone, 
and which it would have been interesting to add, have 
been omitted. The immediate derivation, and, in some 
cases, a further or ultimate derivation is supplied. 1 

The materials of Appendix A. are quite sufficient for 
the purpose in view. Every reasonable person will allow 
their force, as proving - that the people and language of 
Wales are by no means free from foreign admixture. 
Having granted so much, we only expect equal candour 
and obedience to evidence on the other side. 

5. But besides these obviously foreign accretions, the 
Cymric has a multitude of words which it possesses in 
common with many other Indo-European tongues, and 
which are as native to it as they are to any of the others, 
but which are frequently, by over-zealous classicists, con- 
sidered as borrowings from Latin or Greek. 2 Such words, 
are ar graph, imprint ; aru, to plough ; caer, a fortress, a 
city ; genu, to give birth to ; cor, a choir ; llcwyrch, light ; 
llyfr, a book ; met, honey ; medd, mead ; swn, a sound ; 
iaran, thunder ; torch, a ring, wreath ; torf, a crowd ; /:cr, 
a tower, &c. In Appendix B. will be found a small col- 
lection, capable of extension, of words of this class, 
indicating materials inherited by the Welsh from that 
ancient fountain of Indo-European speech, whence the 
1 See Appendix A. - See Appendix B. 



384 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Hellenic, the Romance, the Teutonic, as well as the Celtic 
tongues, have so largely flowed, and which is now usually 
denominated Aryan. Appendix A. will prove that the 
writer is free from Celtic fanaticism, while Appendix B. 
offers a few impartial gleanings, which, if virtually justi- 
fying the claims of Celtic, also illustrate the close 
relationship of the various tongues and races of Europe. 

2. Celtic Elements in the English language derived 
immediately from the Latin. 

We have now to pass on from the consideration of 
British-Celtic materials in English — on which chiefly, as 
the reader has been already warned, we rely for direct 
support to the argument — to a few specimens of words 
found in Celtic, but whose transmission into English has 
been through the Latin. This is done partly by way of 
digression, and in the interests of general philology. 

Assuming for the moment that these elements are 
entitled to the designation "Celtic," it is obvious that 
their passage into English through the Latin, without any 
contact between Anglo-Saxons and Celts in the British 
Isles, would be very possible. The Latin had brought 
them down from the early ages of its own history, having 
first adopted them either by contact with the Ancient 
Celts, or from the common Aryan source, whence they 
passed also into Celtic, and, many of them, into Gothic 
tongues. 

Of course it is competent to ask, wherefore, then, call 
them " Celtic" at all ? We may with equal reason ask, 
why call them Latin ? If on the ground of apparent 
natural affinity with the language in which they are found, 
their constant presence from early times in that language, 
and the absence of evidence of their ever having been 
borrowed from a contemporaneous tongue, words can be 



CELTIC INTRODUCED THROUGH LATIN. 3S5 

pronounced as belonging to the language of which they 
form a part, then these words can quite as properly be 
termed Celtic as Latin. But if to belong to a language 
words must be incapable of being traced to any other, then 
it will follow that no language has more than a very 
meagre vocabulary of its own. Let it be allowed that 
these words are also entitled to be considered Latin, since 
they cannot be proved to have been borrowed by Latin 
from Celtic ; they are on the same ground, at least, 
entitled to the appellation, " Celtic," since it cannot be 
proved that Celtic borrowed them from Latin, or any other 
tongue known to history. They may be, and probably to 
a great extent are, common property derived from a 
common prehistoric source, although their passage into 
English is allowed to have been directly from the Latin, 
and their use here is mainly, if not exclusively, to establish 
a link of relationship between the Classic, Teutonic, and 
Celtic tongues, as members of the same family. 

Words of this class are numerous. To be on the safe 
side, many which have an apparently good claim for 
reception have been omitted. To save space, only one 
Celtic cognate is in most cases given. W. Welsh ; Ir. 
Irish; G. Gaelic ; C. Cornish. 

English, Latin. Celtic Cognate. 

Acclaim Clamo \V. Hefain, to cry, shout ; C. lef. 



Ago, Actum Ir. aige, to act; W. egni, energy. 



Acf 

Action 

Admire Ad-miro W. mir, fair. 

Aliea Alienus W. ail, another. 

Amenity A-moenitas W. mwyn, kind, pleasant; G. 

tender. 
Arduous Arduus (high) Ir. ard, high; C. id. 

At Ad W. at, to. 

Candid Candidus W. can, white; Ir., C. id. 

Co-eval -;.;vus \V. ocs, age. 

•Conceal Concelo W. celu, to hide. 

CC 



386 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English. 


Latin. 




Celtic Cognate. 


Congeal 


Congelo 




W. ceulo, to curdle. 


Corrode 


Cor-rodo 




W. rhusdu, to rust, eat away. 


Council 


Con-cilium 
root cal) 


(fr. 


W. gain', to call. 


Crisp 


Crispo 




W. eras, parched, dry. 


Crust 


Crusta 




W. eras, dry. 


Dean 


Decanus 




W. deg, ten; C. dec, id. 


Decency 


Deceo 




W. teg, fair; C. del, id. 


Decimal 


Decima 




W.dcg, ten; C. dec, id. 


Define 


De-finio 




\7. min, edge, limit. 


Devour 


De-voro 




W.pori, to graze, eat. 


Diminish 


Di-minuo 




W. man, main, small. 


Fable 


Fabula 




W. ebu, to say (?). 


Incendiary 


In and car 
(to shine) 


deo 


W. can, white ; Ir. id. 


Lamina 


Lamina 




W. V.ab, llafn, a slab, a blade. 


Lateral 


Lateralis, latus 


W. lied, breadth ; Ir. hid; C. 








broad. 


Latitude 


Latitudo 




W. Id. 


Laud 


Laus — dis 




W. clod, praise ; Ir. cliu, id. 


Mamma 


Mamma 




W. mam, mother. 


Minim 


\ Minus 






Minor 




W. man, main, small. 


Minute 






Nebula 


Nebula 




W. nifel, niivl, mist; Ir., C. 
G. netil, id. 


Negation 


Negatio, nego 


W. nage, no, naciiu, refuse ; C. and 








Arm. nag, no. 


Noun 


Nomen 




W. enw, name. 


Plausible 


Plaudo, laus 


-dis 


W. clod, praise ; bloeddio, to crv, 
shout. 


Plenary 


Plenus 




W. llawn, full; C. latrn, id. 


Radius 


Radius 




W. gwraidd, root. 


Radix 


Radix 




W. The same. 


Reside 


Sedeo 




W. sedd, a seat ; C. sedhva, a seat. 


Scribe 


Scribo 




W.ysgrifio, crafu, to scrape. 


Scripture 


Scriptura 




W. The same. 


Seat 


Sedeo 




W. . .', a seat. 


Senior 


Senis 




W. hen, old; C. ib. ; Ir. and C. 
sean, id. 


Spike 


Spica 




VV. | . , a point. 


Spine 


Spina 




VV. j . i, stile, pen. 



CELTIC INTRODUCED THROUGH LATIN. 



iS 7 



English. 
Terrene 
Tribe 

Trope 

Union 

Unity 

Vacant 

Vacation 

Venus 



Celtic Cognate. 
W. tir, earth, land; G. and C. id. 
W. tref, a dwelling; Ir. treabh ; C. 

trev. 
W. troi, to turn ; W., C, and Arm. 

tro, a turn. 
\V. un, one ; Ir. aon ; C. itn ; Manx, 



Latin. 
Terra 

Tribus 

Tropus 

Unus 

Unitas W. The same. 

^ Vaco, vacuus (root W. gweig, open, empty ; C. Arm. 
) vag) id. 

Venus W.gwen, fair, white ; used as epithet 

for woman, same as A.S. cwen, 
Engl, queen. Vide Append. B. 
" gwyn." 



3. Celtic Elements in the English language, derived 
through the Teutonic tongues, or through Norman-French. 

The Teutonic tongues, including Anglo-Saxon, Danish, 
German, and Dutch, are naturally entitled to be classed 
together as sources of modern English ; and Norman- 
French, being mainly a mode of Latin, should, if it were 
convenient, be also in some manner classed along with 
that language, or stand by itself as a hybrid. But words 
derived from the N.-Fr. cannot be said to be a direct gift 
of the Latin. They are cut off from their primal source 
by the intervention of this new tongue. Convenience and 
simplicity of arrangement have decided in favour of the 
present grouping. 

Some words in this table arc of doubtful origin ; but 
the contest is hot between Celt and Saxon for a right in 
them. For the most part we have given the benefit of the 
doubt to the latter. Who can decide with certainty as to 
the immediate quarter whence the English obtained the 
word pilgrim ? We shall be told that it came from the L. 
percgriuits. Of course it did. But the question as it affects 

c 2 



388 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the English language is not whence it came at the first, 
but whence it came at the fast step. From Fr. pelerin ? 
Germ. pUgo? ? Corn . pirgirin ? \r.pirgrin ? or VJ.pererin ? 
It is curious to note the metamorphoses of this word in the 
different languages. The Germ, and the Fr. have agreed 
to banish the r from the first syllable. The Engl, follows 
in this, as well as in the introduction of the /. It seems 
therefore to have borrowed the word from one of these 
languages ; but you have no sooner gone to rest upon this 
conclusion than you observe tha.t it has tacked to the word 
an ending different from both. We cast into the scale the 
agreement with the Germ, in the letter g, and give the 
Teuton the victory. This is the kind of chase the etymo- 
logist has often to pursue. The word parsley is another 
instance. 1 Ticmip is quite as perplexing. 2 

It will be borne in mind that the same qualification 
applies to this table as applied to the last — it is not relied 
upon as evidence of admixture between the Ancient Britons 
and the English. The Celtic roots which have reached the 
English through the languages here given as direct sources 
were probably the common property of the Celtic and 
Teutonic languages, and of the original, for the most part, 
of the N.-French (Latin) for ages far anterior to the 
junction of Celts and Teutons on British ground. Let the 

1 Gr. TrcrpoatXivov, Lat. pdroseli non, are plain; but the crder of descent 
in the following is not so easily ascertained: — A.-S. peterselige; Germ. 
pctevsilic ; Dan. petersille; (now the t is dropped), Ir. peirsill ; W '. pcrsyll .- 
Fr. persil. Which is the next of kin to the Engl. " parsley?" 

- The Teutons and Celts alike have perceived some suitableness or 
other in the letters uwp or omp, with a variety of initiatory forces, for 
expressing the idea of a full, rounded, or protuberant body ; but the law 
which determined the adoption of this or that leader, in the shape of a 
first letter, may be too occult for even a clever etymologist to discover. 
Trump has these relations: lump, bump, hump, rump, clump, dump, and 
\V. clamp, swmp ; and across the Channel, Danish, German, and Swedish, 
klump ; and Dutch, hlomp. 



CELTIC THROUGH TEUTONIC AND FRENCH. 

junction of Celts and Teutons on British ground. Let the 
table be valid for its own object only — viz., to show how- 
far the English tongue is charged with Celtic elements, or, 
at any rate, elements which are as much Celtic as they 
are anything The}' may belong to a period of human 
speech far preceding any form which may be distinctively 
termed Gothic, Hellenic, or Celtic, and we might be 
pushed in the last resort to confess that they can only be 
classified in a general way as Indo-European, or Aryan, 
but they are found, apparently in their natural habitat, in 
modern Celtic, and offer no signs of foreign derivation or 
relation. They serve at the least, like the preceding table, 
to show the interrelationship of the languages concerned 
as members of one family. 

It is especially to be noted that many of the Norman- 
French contributions w r ere obtained by that language, not 
from Latin, but from the Ancient Gothic or the Celtic. 
They are marked (*). 

The list given is by no means complete, and only one 
Celtic cognate is given with each word. [A. S. Anglo- 
Saxon, Dan. Danish, D. Dutch, G. German, Fr. Norman- 
French, W. Welsh, Ir. Irish, C. Cornish, A. Armcrici] 

Celtic Elements in English borrowed from Teutonic or Norman-French. 



English. 


Tent, or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 


Abide 


A.S. bidan 


W. bod (be). 


All 


A.S. eal 


W. oil. 


Anomaly 


Fr. anomalie 
(d 6p.a\6s) 


W. hafal. 


Anvil 


A.S. anfilt 


Ir. inneon. 


Ape 


A.S. apa 


W. epa. 


Ball 


Fr. balle; G. 


W. pel. 


Barm 


A.S. beorm 


C. burm. 


Baron 


Fr. baron 


Ir. fir (L. vir). 


Be 


A.S. beon 


W. bod. 


Beak 


A.S. piic 


W. pig. 



590 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English . 


Tent, or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 


Beat 


A.S. beatan 


W. baeddu. 


Bed 


A.S. bed 


W. bedd. 


Beef 


Fr. bceuf 


W. buweh. 


Beer* 


Fr. biere 


W. and A. bir. 


Begin 


A.S. beginnan 


W. cyn. 


Boat 


A.S. bat 


W. bad. 


Boss 


Fr. bosse 


W. both. 


Bottle 


Fr. bouteille 


W. both. 


Bride 


A.S. bryd 


Ir. brideog; W. priod. 


Broth 


A.S. broth 


W. *berwad (decoction) 


Brother 


A.S. brather 


W. brawd. (?) 


Bruit 


Fr. bruit 


W. brudio, brut. 


Buck 


A.S. buc 


W. bwch ; Ir. boc. 


Cable* 


Fr. cable 


W. gafael. 


Cat* 


A.S. catt 


W. cath. 


Caress 


Fr. caresser 


W. car. 


Care 


Goth, kar 


W. cur. 


Cargo 


A.S. care 

(Span, carga) 


W. cario. 


Castle 


A.S. castel 


W. castell. 


Cede 


Fr. ceder 


W. gado. 


Chair 


Fr. chaire 


W. car. 


Charity 


Fr. charite 


W. cariad. 


Cheek 


A.S. ceac 


W. ceg. 


Cherish 


Fr. cherir 


W. cir, car. 


Choir 


A.S. chor 


\Y. cor. 


Clay 


A.S. claeg 


W. clai. 


Clew 


A.S. cleow 


W. clob. 


Close 


Fr. clos 


W. clyd. 


Cloth 


A.S. clath 


W. id. 


Cluck 


G. glucken 


W. cloch. 


Cob 


A.S. cop 


W. cob. 


Come 


A.S. cuman 


W. cam (step). 


Con v. 


A.S. connan 


W. gwn (1 know). 


Cony* 


Fr. conin 


W. cwning. 


Coquette* 


Fr. coquet 


W. coeg. 


Cord 


Fr. cord 


W. corden. 


Cot 


A.S. cot 


\Y. cwt, cyttiau, pi. 


Crab 


A.S. crabba 


W. craf-u. 


Crack* 


Fr. craquer 


\Y. rhwvg. 


Cramp 


A.S. hramn a 


\Y. crym-mu. 


Cranny* 


Fr. cran 


W. ran. 



CELTIC THROUGH TEUTONIC AND FRENCH. 



39* 






English . 


Teut. or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 


Crave 


A.S. cravian 


W. crcf-u. 


Crump 


A.S. crump 


W. crwm. 


Cry* 


Fr. crier 


W. cri. 


Cup 


A.S. cupp 


W. cwpan. 


Daub* 


Fr. dauber 


W. dwb-io. 


Deal 


A.S. daelan 


W. di-doli. 


Deep 


A.S. deop 


W. dwfn. 


Demand 


Fr. demander 


W. mynu. 


Deny 


Fr. denier 


W. na, nac. 


Deploy 


Fr. deployer 


W. plygu. 


Display 


Fr. deployer 


W. plygu. 


Door 


A.S. dur 


W. dor. 


Double 


Fr. double 


W. dau-plyg. 


Dower 


Fr. douer 


W. dodi. 


Dragon 


Fr. dragon 


W. draig. 


Earth 


A.S. eorth 


W. daear, ar. 


Eat 


A.S. eaten 


W. bwydo. 


Egg 


A.S. aeg 


W. wy. 


Ell 


A.S. elne 


W. elin. 


Employ 


Fr. employer 


W. plygu. 


TLtiquetto* 


Fr. etiquette 


W. toe, tocyn (a ticket 


Falcon 


Fr. faucon 


W. gzvalch. 


Fife 


G. pfeife 


W. pib. 


Finch 


A.S. fine 


W. pine. 


Fine 


Fr. fin 


W. main. 


Flap 


A.S. laeppa 


W. llab. 


Flat 


Fr. plat 


W. lied, llydan. 


Floor 


A.S. flor 


W. llawr. 


Four 


A.S. feower 


W. pedwar. 


Freeze 


A.S. frysan 


W. fferu. 


Full 


A.S. full 


W. gwala. 


Gallant* 


Fr. gallant 


W. gallu. 


Garden 


G. garten, A.S. 
geard 


W. cae, caer. 


Garter* 


Fr. jarretierre 


W. gar (leg). 


Glass 


A.S. glaes 


W. glas (green). 


Glave* 


Fr. glaive 


W. llafn, glaif. 


Glen 


A.S. glen 


W. glyn. 


Glib 


Dan. glib 


W. llib, llipa. 


Glow 


A.S. glowan 


W. gloyw. 


Goad 


A.S. gad 


W. gwth. 


Goose 


A.S. gos 


W. gwydd. 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH, 



English. 


Tcut. or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate, 


Gormand* 


Fr. gourmand 


W. gor (extreme - 


Grace 


Fr. grace 


W. rad. 


Grave 


A.S. grafan 


W. crafn. 


Gravel 


Fr. gravelle 


W. graian. 


Ground 


A.S. grund 


W. graian. 


Guard 


Fr. guarder 


W. caer. 


Guise* 


Fr. guise 


W. gwedd; Arm. 


Herald* 


Fr. heraut 


W. her, herawd. 


Hide 


A.S. hydan 


W. cuddio. 


Hive 


A.S. hyfe 


W. cafn. 


Horn 


A.S. horn 


W. corn. 


Hour 


Fr. heure 


W. awr. 


Iron 


A.S. iren 


W. hairan. 


Kin 


) 




Kind 


A.S. kyn. 


W. cyn, cenedL 


Kindred 


) 




King 


A.S. cyng 


W. cun. 


Know 


A.S. cnawan 


W. gwn (I know;. 


Lap 


A.S. lappian 


W. lleibio. 


Large 


Fr. large 


W. llawer; Com. lour. 


Lath 


Fr. latte 


W. Hath. 


Lather 


A.S. lethrian 


W. Uathru. 


Lead 


A.S. laedan 


W. ilywio. 


Leap 


A.S. pleafan 


W. llwff. 


Light 


A.S. liht 


W. lluch. 


Linnet* 


Fr. linot 


W. Uinos. 


Lip 


A.S. lippe 


W. llafn. 


Load 


A.S. lade 


W. llwyth. 


Lock 


A.S. loc 


W. clicied. 


Lump 


G. klump 


W. clamp. 


Mail* 


Fr. maille 


W. magi (n< 


Malady 


Fr. maladie 


W. mall-dod. 


Marine 


Fr. marine 


W. mor. 


Marshal 


Fr. marechal 


W. march. 


Meal 


G. mehl 


W. mal-u. 


Mean 


A.S. maene 


\Y. man, main. 


Meat 


A.S. mete 


W. maeth. 


Mellow 


A.S. melewe 


W. mal. 


Mile 


Fr. millc 


W. mil. 


Mill 


A.S. miln 


W. mal, melin. 


Mince 


Fr, mince 


W. man. 


Mind 


Dan. minde 


W. cnyn. 



CELTIC THROUGH TEUTONIC AND FRENCH. 



593 



English. 

Mine 

Minion 

Mock 

Mole 

Monej' ' 

Morning 

Mound 

Mount-ain 

Mule 

Murder 

Musk 

Mutton 

Neat (clean) 

Neck 

Nedder 

Needle 

Nephew 

Nest 

New 

Nip • 

No 

Noon 

Nut 

One 

Onion 

Over 

Ox 

Pea-s 

Peak 

Pike 

Pick 

Pear 

Pellet and 

Bullet 

Pin 

Pioneer 

Pipe 

Pique 

Plague 

Plant 

Plate 



Neut. or N.Fr. 
Fr. mine 
Fr. mignon 
Fr. moquer 
Fr. mole 
Fr. monnaie 
A.S. morgen 
A.S. munt 
A.S. id. 
A.S. mul 
A.S. morther 
Fr. musk 
Fr. mouton 
Fr. net 
A.S. necca 
A.S. nedder 
A.S. naedl 
Fr. neveu 
A.S. nest 
A.S. neow 
D. knippen 
A.S. ne 
A.S. non 
A.S. knut 
A.S. aen 
Fr. ognon 
A.S. ober 
A.S. oxa 
A.S. pisa 

A.S. peac, pnc 

A.S. pera 



| Fr. pelote 



A.S. pinn 
Fr. piochier 
(pioche,/>/c/i;axe) 
A.S. pipe 
Fr. pique 
G. plage 
Fr. plante 
G. platte 



Celtic Cognate. 
W. mwn. 
W. man. 
W. moc-io. 
W. moel. 
W. mwn. 
W. bore. 
W. mynydd. 
W. id. 

W. mul, mil. 
W. marw. 
W. mws, mwsg. 
W. moilt. 
W. nith. 
W. c-nwe. 
W. neidyr. 
W. nodwydd. 
W. nai. 
W. nyth. 
W. newydd. 
W. cneifio. 
W. na. 
W. nawn. 
W. cnau. 
W. un. 

\V. wynwyn, cenin (?) 
W. ar. 
W. ych. 
W. pys. 

W. pig. 

W. per. 
W. pel. 

W. pin. 
W. pigo. 

W. pib. 
W. pig. 
W. pla. 
W. plent (ray). 

W. lied, llydan. 



394 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English. 


Tent, or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 


Plight 


A.S. plintan 


\V. plygu. 


Pool 


A.S. pol 


W. pwll. 


Pottage* 


Fr. potage 


W. potes. 


Practice '- 


Fr. or Sp. : 


W. praith. 


Press 


Fr. presser 


W. brys. 


Pretty 


A.S. praete 


W. pryd. 


Pure 


A.S. pur 


W. pur. 


Quern 


A.S. cwyrn 


W. chwyrn. 


Queste 


Fr. queste 


W. cais, ceisio. 


Quit 


Fr. quitter 


W. gadu. 


Radish 


A.S. raedic 


W. rudd. 


Rag 


A.S. hracod 


W. rhwyg. 


Rake 


A.S. racian 


W. id. 


Range 


Fr. ranger 


W. reng. 


Rank 


Fr. rang 


W. id. 


Raven 


A.S. hraeven 


W. bran. 


Ray 


Fr. raie 


W. rhe, rhedeg. 


Read 


A.S. raed 


W. raith, araeth (?) 


Recoil 


Fr. reculer 


W. cilio. 


Red 


A.S. red 


W. rhudd. 


Rend 


A.S. rendan 


W. ran-u. 


Rent 


A.S. id. 


W. id. 


Rhyme 


A.S. rim 


W. rhif. 


Rind 


A.S. rind 


W. croen. 


Road 


A.S. rod 


\V. rhawd, rhodio. 


Roast 


G. rbsten 


W. rhost ; Ir., C, and Arm 


Rock (crag) 


Fr. roche 


W. craig. 


Root 


Dan. rod 


W. gw-raidd. 


Rose 


Fr. rose 


W. rhos-yn, rhudd. 


Rot 


A.S. rotian 


W. rhydd. 


Rough 


A.S. hreog 


W. garw, crych. 


Round 


G. Rund 


W. crun. 


Route* same as Fr. route 


W. rhawd. 


" road" 






Row 


A.S. rawa 


W. rhes. 


Royal 


Fr. royale 


W. rhi. 


Rowel 


Fr. Rouelle 


W. rhod. 



1 The word "practice" has the corresponding Celtic root, praith, act, 
practice; but its direct descent is uncertain. Fr. pratique seems more 
probable than the Spanish practica. Ultimate derivation, Trp6.a<ru. 



CELTIC THROUGH TEUTONIC AND FRENCH. 



: r 



English. 


Tad. or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 




Rub 


G. reiben 


W. crafu. 




Ruddy 


A.S. rude 


W. rhudd. 




Rune 

Runic 


j A.S. run 


W. rin, cyfrin. 




Rush 


A.S. reosan 


W. brys 




Rust 


A.S. rust 


W. rhwd. 




Sack 


A.S. saec 


W. sach. 




Saddle 


A. S. sadel 


W. sedd. 




Sail 


A.S. segel 


W. hwyl. 




Salt 


A.S. salt 


W. halen. 




Scrape 


A.S. screpan 


\V. crafu. 




Search* 


F. chercher 


W. cyrch. 




Seed 


A.S. saed 


W. had. 




Senate 
Senior 


J Fr. senat (Lat.) 


W. hen (old). 




Serene 


Fr. serein 


W. sir-oil. 




Shear 
Share 


J A.S. scearan. 


W. esgar. 




Shell 


A.S. seel 


W. celu, cell. 




Shield 


A.S. scyld. 


W. eel. 




Similar 


Fr. similaire 


W. mal, hafal. 




Sit 


A.S. sitan 


W. sedd (t add. 


in eisfedd) 


Six 


A.S. six 


W. chwech. 




Slough 


A.S. slog 


Ir. lough, loch. 




Smoke 


A.S. smoca 


W. mwg. 




Solder* 


Fr. souder 


W. sawd, sodi. 




Sound 


A.S. son 


W. sain, swn. 




Sour 


A.S. sur 


W. sur. 




Spur 


A.S- spur 


W. yspardyn. 




Target 


Fr. targe: A.S. id 


\V. taraw. 




Tarry 
Tardy 


] Fr. tardif 


W. tario. 




Tear, v. 


A.S. taeran 


W. tori. 




Tear 


A.S. tear 


W. dagr. 




Ten 


A.S. tyn 


W. deg. 




Tenant 


Fr. tenant 


\V. tynu. 




Tend 


Fr. tendre 


W. id. 




Tent 


Fr. tente 


W. id. 




Thatch 


A.S. thac 


W. to. 




Thaw 


A.S. thawen 


W. toddi. 




Thick 


A.S. thic 


W. tew. 




Thin 


A.S. thinn 


W. tcneu (?) 





39^ 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



English. 


Teut. or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 


Thorpe 


A.S. thorpe 


W. tref. 


Thou 


A.S. thu 


W. ti. 


Three 


A.S. thri 


W. tri. 


Through 


A.S. thurh ; G. 
durch 


W. tiwy. 


Thurs-day 


A.S. Thors-daeg 


W. taran (thunder). 


Ticket* 


Fr. etiquette 


W. toc-yn. 


Tin 


A.S. tin 


W. taenu. 


Tinder 


A.S. tendan 


W. tan, tanio. 


To 


A.S. to 


W. tua. 


Tomb 


Fr. tombe 


W. tomen. 


Torture 


Fr. torture (L.) 


W. torchi. 


Tuft 


Fr. touffe 


W. twf. 


Tumble 


A.S. tumbian 


W. twmp, a hillock. 


Tun 


A.S. tuna 


W. tynnell, Celtic tyn, 
close, tight, straitened. 
A.S. ton, a town, seems 
to be from same archaic 
root, carrying the idea 
of an enclosure, a con- 
fined, protected place. 


Turn 


A.S.tyrna, turnan 


W. twr, or tor, a rounded 
eminence, a projection, 
W. troi, to turn, W.C. 
and Arm. tro, a turn. 


Vain 


Fr. vain (the (Lat. 


W.gwag, empty; Corn. 




vanusisacontr 


Ar. id., Ir. . 




for vacanus, fr 






root VAG.) 




Vassal 


Fr. vassal 


W. gwas, a young man, a 



Waggon 



Germ.wagen;A.S. 

vac Lin 



servant; Corn. gwas, a 

young person, a mean 
person, a fellow. 
\Y. gm . ,. open, empty. 
From same archaic 
root i vagi are Lat. 
vagina, vaco, vanus 
if r v.icanus), ftc; and 
prob. also A.S. 
Germ, weg, a way, an 
I passage through 
a forest or country. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 397 



English. 


Teut. or N.Fr. 


Celtic Cognate. 


Wain 


Id. 


W. id. 


Wan 


A.S. wan 


W. gwyn, white, pale. 


Whine 


A.S. cwanian 


W. cwyn, complaint ; 
Gael, caoin. 



Concluding Remarks on the English Language. 

Omitting from the account the materials derived by- 
English from the Latin, Teutonic, and Norman-French, 
and confining our attention to the Tables preceding, 
we see a state of things which the enthusiastic stickler 
for the "Anglo-Saxon" character of the English will 
not love to contemplate. Fortunately the language is its 
own witness. A simple examination of its contents, in 
the light of modern learning, shows that it enshrines 
numerous portions of an ancient tongue nearly identical 
with modern Welsh. Others, not so numerous, might be 
traced to the Erse. History proves that for centuries the 
Anglo-Saxons fought, formed treaties, intermarried with 
the Cymric race, and nothing is therefore more natural 
than that certain portions of the speech of the latter 
should have been learnt and adopted by them. They 
received from these people the usages of civilised warfare 
bequeathed by the Romans — received from them the 
knowledge of letters — found among them the splendid 
architecture and sculpture which the wealth and genius 
of Rome had lavished on this land — learned from them 
how to make roads, build dwellings and bridges (though 
their learning in these respects produced for ages but 
little fruitj, till the fields, cook their food, and decently 
dress their persons. They even themselves passed 
through intermixture out of the properly Anglo-Saxon 
into the Cambro-Saxon phase, constituting in fact a new 
race. What prohibition of fate could prevent then from 



398 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

learning and adopting terms by which new ideas imported 
were marked, as well as receive new ideas and race 
characteristics ? Our tabulated witnesses will help to 
show that no such prohibition had issued. Cause and 
effect worked then as now, and the natural result was 
that the language of the new race, like the race itself, and 
the range of its conceptions, received a new character. 

Like the nation the English language is one of the most 
elaborate of mixtures. So rapid has been its growth and 
change of aspect, that like the grown man, it would 
hardly recognise itself in the likeness of what it was at 
different stages of its progress. What would Macau] 
English say of WyclifFe's, or Wycliffe's of ./Elfric's ? 
King Alfred, King Henry VII., and our lamented Prince 
Consort wrote and spoke a very different tongue. With 
the growth of the people and of knowledge, with every 
addition of race or tribe — it has continued to widen and 
lengthen its dimensions, little heeding whether the accre- 
tions came from the alien Celtic, Greek, Latin, or Romance, 
or the nearer akin Dutch, Danish, or German, 1 so that 
whatever came was worth the having. Its acquisitiveness 
continues as keen as ever. All still comes well that meets 
the ever pressing demand, and contributes to the force 
and fulness of a language destined to be the most widely 
spoken, the most comprehensive, the most learned of all 
the tongues of earth — the language destined, accordin ; 
Jacob Grimm, to be " the language of the universe." It 
has cast away, from time to time, myriads of useless and, 

1 So great has been the accumulation of foreign materials that not 
more than one-third of the modem I /is purely Teutonic 

in origin. And yet the power of custom induces many not illiterate 
men to talk of the English as a Teutonic tongue. See Prof. Max 
Midler's Lectures on the 6" . p. 76, and De Thommcrel's 

RechefeJtes sur la Fusion, &c, passim. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 399 

Indeed, some useful vocables, and to this day, growing in 
stability and greed of acquisition, like the most diligent of 
misers, gathers from every available quarter every term 
which the progress of science renders necessary, and which 
the hand of philology can glean from the universal field 
of language. How long its progress onwards and upwards 
will continue, who can tell r It is likely enough that many 
of its present materials will again vanish, and many 
foreign take their place, and that the English of to-day, 
despite the permanency given by the press and by scholar- 
ship, will be nearly as strange to the people of 500 years to 
come as Chaucer's is to us. Thus the words of Horace will 
once more be realised : — 

" Mortalia facta peribunt : 
Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax. 
Multa renascentur, quag jam cecidere ; cadentque, 
Qua? nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus ; 
Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi." 




400 



CHAPTER III. 

The Evidence of Topographical and Personal 
Names. 

" In the earliest period, when our documentary history first throws 
tight upon the subject, there are still found names unintelligible to the 
Teutonic scholar, not to be translated or explained by anything in the 
Teutonic languages ; nay, only to be understood by reference to Cimric 
or Pictish roots, and thus tending to suggest a far more general mixture 
of blood among the early conquerors than has generally been admitted 
to have existed." — J. M. Kemble. 

SECTION I. 

The Enduring Nature of Local Names. 

None of the traces of human doings on earth are 
more durable, and few are more instructive, than the 
names borne by the chief features of a country — its 
mountains, rivers, valleys, creeks, Sec. — next to which for 
tenaciousness of life may be classed the names of early 
settlements, towns, castles. 

To the painstaking modern philologist and ethnologist, 
toiling to trace the footprints of the primeval inhabitants, 
catch the echoes of their language, and learn their pursuits, 
these local names are as serviceable as the fossil shells and 
bones of past geological periods are to the geologist or 
palsBontologist when judging of the relation of species 
now existing to those which unmeasured ages ago waded 
through the marshes, rushed through the forests, or flew 
through the air of our planet. The forms of these local 



ENDURING NATURE OF LOCAL NAMES. 40 1 

names, indeed, are not so proof against alteration as are 
those of the fossils fortified in their stronghold of adamant. 
Local names lie, as it were, on the surface, subject to 
attrition from successive waves of languages and peoples 
passing over them. One nation comes, another follows^ 
and another, and another, — and the names imposed by 
the first, when not reduced to fixed form in writing, are 
taken up by each of its successors subject to its own 
means and methods of representing sounds, and to the 
caprice or occasion of the moment in adding or eliminating 
parts. Even the same people will, not unfrequently, mar 
and disfigure, through misconception or carelessness, the 
names bestowed by its ancestors, and etymologically 
significant in its own language. If Agmondesham has 
been metamorphosed by the English into Amersham, 
Wightgarabyrig into Carisbrook, Scrobbesbyrig into the 
euphonious Salopia, or Badecanwylla into Bakewell, and 
this in recent centuries, what may we not expect from 
untutored nations among whom writing was unknown, 
and from a long series of changes of occupation r 

And yet, notwithstanding all this, local names are a 
record almost indestructible — monumentum aere fterennius. 
They survive the lapse of millenniums of years, and, like 
the statue of Alemnon, the Sphynx, or the Pyramids, look 
calmly down on the stream of coming and vanishing- 
nations continually passing by, without themselves seeming 
to partake in the universal change. They are more station- 
ary than even hills and mountains. The language they 
once belonged to, may be, has altogether, except the parts 
contained in themselves, vanished from the earth; the busy 
multitudes who articulated its sounds have all been long- 
forgotten, and no other memorial of their existence remains, 
but there, faithful to the trust reposed in them, like sentries 
at their posts, after thousands of years of service, stand, 

DD 



402 PEDIGREE OF IKE I 

those significant and well-chosen epithets, proffering to the 
modern student a clue at once to the speech and race, the 
migrations and era, of those who placed them there. 
From breezy mountain tops, from streams and fountains, 
from haunted ruins of once majestic temples and more 
majestic cities — the spirit of a forgotten race speaks to 
men of the present time, and tells them who, and what 
sort of people, first called those mountains, rivers, cities 
their own, and gave them names corresponding to their 
nature, as Adam is said to have done to the creatures 
of a new creation. 

A nation may disappear, and its place be repeatedly 
taken by others, different in language, religion, and race, 
yet its local names survive throughout. There are local 
names still known in Britain which were given by heathen 
Romans, heathen Saxons and Angles, nay, even anterior 
to all these — by heathen Cimbri and Gaels. There are names 
now in Palestine, and they are of world-wide fame, which 
were given b) r the Canaanitish tribes before the Hebrews 
had become a nation — as Baal-Hazor, Baal-Tamar, 
Kirjath-Arba, Kirjath-Sepher, Luz, &C., 1 and by the 
Hebrews a thousand years before the Moslems who now 
rule there had received their faith — as Bethel, Beersheba — 
and neither change of race, faith, or time, has much altered 
them. Egypt in its inhabitants is Turkish to-day, but its 
great cities, temples, river, are not named by Turks. The 
Northern States of America are inhabited by an English- 
speaking people, mainly English in blood, religion, 
customs ; but how many of their local names are memorials 
of a vanished Indian rat' ' i'hany, Mississippi, 

Wabash, Shenandoah, Potor . .Massachusetts, 

Rappahannoc, Chicago — their very sound is barbarian ! 

1 Sc2 Stanlej 



USES OF LOCAL NAMES. 403 

SECTION II. 

The various Uses of Local Names. 

We derive from local names a four-fold service — 
philological, geographical, ethnological, and historical. Local 
names are shrines preserving precious relics of ancient 
tongues, not at all, or but imperfecly known, and aid us in 
tracing the nature and family relations of these tongues. 
They assist us in judging of the aspects of scenery, the 
fauna and flora of the country, the relations of land and 
water, courses of rivers, positions of shipping-places, and 
the changes which have taken place since the names were 
imposed. They give a clue to the migrations and inter- 
mixture of nations, the succession of their occupation of 
the same country, and their settlements. 

No descriptive geography, except that of local names, is 
required to inform us that the district known as Traethmazvr 
in North Wales [traeth, sea beach ; mawr, larg'e, extensive) 
was once a sandy sea shore, though now a fertile agricul- 
tural tract of country — that the Isle of Thanet, now a part 
of the main land, was once an island — that Chertsrr, Ber- 
monds^)', Chelsea, were once islands (A.-Sax. ca, cy, as 
Angles'^)', the Angles' island) or that the Cotswold hills 
(Welsh, coed, wood, forest, and A.-Sax. weald, forest, — a 
one-word description in two languages) were at one time a 
forest, and successively named by two races of people. 
While the local names of this quarter of the globe remain 
there will be no lack of evidence that the face of Europe 
was once swept, or rather settled upon, by a race speaking 
a Celtic language. 

Very various arc the aspects under which names of 
places may be classified, according to the occasion which 
in each case determined their first use. They arc epitaphs 

DD 2 



404 'I HE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

or dirges, marking- the graves of the fallen, or the site of 
some terrible catastrophe — as Waeddgrug, in Flintshire 
, . gwaedd, a cry, and crug, hoarse) the reputed locality of 
a great slaughter of the Picts and Saxons by the Welsh ; l 
Battle, in Sussex ; Leckford (Germ. Iridic, a dead body), in 
Kent ; the villages Slaughter and Lead;, in Gloucester- 
shire ; - — votive offerings, as Bethel; — altar inscriptions, as 
Baalbec (Syr. the bee, or city of Baal) ; Eratlwrpc (Dan. the 
thorp or village of the deity Frea) ; Godstozv ; Llanfair 
(Mary's holy place) : — geographical descriptions, as Ochill 
Hills [ochill or uchel, high) ; Eryri, Snowdon (W. cira, 
snow) ; Dinmore (W. din, fortress ; mawr, great) ; Ebb-fled, a 
port in the 12th century, though now half a mile inland ; — 
fortress ensigns, as CVz^rfyrddin, 'Winchester, TL&mburgh, 
Woodstock; — homestead memorials, as Camberwell, Ff amp- 
stead, Trevychan, or Cheltenham : — mementos of great 
achievements, as America, Columbia, Ware, 3 — tributes to 
personal worth and public services, as Washington, Jeffer- 
son, Pennsylvania. 

Many places which are now of great importance, con- 
tinue to be designated by names indicating a very humble 
beginning. The French Emperor's chief residence is the 
Tmleries, 4 or "tile-yard," the place, when Paris was as yet 

1 On the alleged " Alleluia victory," under Gannon, or Germanus, 
see Rees's Welsh Saints, p. 121, and St. John's Four Conquests of . 
vol. i. p. 56. 

- Camden's Britannia, by Gough, vol. ii. 131. 

: Ware is said I 1 hear the name of the " weir" which King Alfred's 
genius constructed across the River Lea, whereby he cut off the retreat 
of the Danish fleet. Camd. Brit., vol. ii. p. 68 ; Turn ^.:xons, 

. 1, 398 : Taylor's 1! ces, p. 321. 

1 No 1 inger the residence of an Emperor, the empire being abolished 
I, t : .- Tuili : . with many o( the chief public buildings 

of Paris) consumed by the 1 f the < 

Emperor Napoleon III., deceased, a fugitive in J 



ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF CELTIC LOCAL NAMES. 405 

small, where they manufactured building- tiles. The Vati- 
can, a word of potency throughout the Roman Catholic 
world, was the name borne by a small hill outside of 
ancient Rome. Lambeth is the " loam hithe," or landing*- 
place once existing on that part of the Thames. The aris- 
tocratic residents oi May fair rejoice in a designation which 
originated in a rustic annual "fair 55 held in that locality 
when all London was east of Temple Bar. Covent Garden 
was the garden of a convent, and the Strand was simply 
the river bank or " strand," along which people walked in 
going from London to Westminster. 



SECTION III. 

The Ethnological Value of the Celtic Local Names of England. 

1. The Celtic local names of England as evidence of 
Celtic settlement. 

As history is so distinct upon the settlement of the Celts 
in England, i.e., generally over the whole face of Britain, 
the fact need not here be proved, but simply illustrated by 
reference to the names of places. The Ancient Britons, 
Cymri or Gaels, have left their marks, inscribed in their 
own proper tongue, all over the island from London to 
Dover in one direction, to Gloucester, J/tf/zchester, York 
[Evrog), Edinburgh, and Aberdeen in another. On the 
eastern side of the island, these marks are fewer than in 
other parts — a fact in harmony with the tenor of history — ■ 
for at no period in the annals of Britain do v. : find those 
districts much frequented by the Celtic race. 

It is remarkable that almost all the principal rivers of 
England bear Celtic names. The other great 1 ural 



\06 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

features of the country — its mountains, hills, valleys, 
brooks, creeks, downs, also abound in them. The sceptical 
reader will want proof, and we proceed to give it. In 
Scotland and Wales such names would, of course, be 
expected to abound, and as their prevalence has no 
bearing upon the question of race admixture in England, 
they need not be here produced. 



(a.) Mountains and Hills 1 (omitting Scotland and Wales). 

Cymric words applied to elevations in the earth's surface, 
are : pen, head, end, outstretching part ; din, a high place, 
a place of defence ; ccfn, a ridge, back ; cam, carncdd, a 
heap, mound ; craig, a rock, a crag ; ar, arran, over, high ; 
bryn, bre, hill ; mod, a bare eminence ; twr, similar in 
signification to din, a high place of defence, natural and 
artificial ; ban, peak, high land, beacon. Examples in 
Wales : Penmynydd, Penrhyn, Penmaenmawr, Dinas, 
Denbigh, Dinevawr, Cefn-pennar, Cefn-llys, Carnedd- 
Llywelyn, Craigfargod, Penygraig, Twrcelyn, Arran- 
Fowddwy, Arran-y-Gessel, Brynllys, Bryn-Croes, Penbro, 
Bannau Brycheiniog. 2 



1 On Celtic local names of mountains, &c, comp. Diefenbach, 
Celtica, i. pp. 104, 157, 170, &c. ; Adelung's Mi . . 

Zeuss, Gram. Celt. 2nd Ed., p. 66, et pas 

- In Welsh, pen and ban are of like signification ; . :\ is in 

most use. The ban of Wales is the ben of Scotland. 
The plural of /..:••;. ; se en in Bctnn 

the Brecknockshire Beacons. .. must not be laid 

1 n the pen of Wales and the ben of Scotland as test words in proof of 
. net and prior occupation of the country by the Gaelic branch of 
the Celts. 



ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE 


OF LOCAL NAMES. 


Brandon Hill, 


Ess. 


London. 




Brandon Hill, 


Dew 


Maldon, 


Ess. 


Brendon, 


Dev. 


Ma/pas (moel), 


Derb. 


Brent (bryn) To/, 


Dev. 


Malvern, 


Wore. 


BredwaiY!;;.Y, 


Heref. 


Pembridge, 


Heref. 


Brinton, 


Norf. 


Pembury, 


Kent. 


BrinsoTp, 


Heref. 


Pencoed, 


Heref. 


Bryn-ior, 1 


Devon. 


Peucomb, 


Heref. 


Chevin, 


Shrop. 


Pendennis (dinas) 


Corn. 


Cornwall, 




Pendleton, 


Lane. 


Cowden, 


Kent. 


Pmhill, 


Som. 


Crick, 


Derb. 


Penketh, 


Lane. 


Crick, 


Northamp. 


Pennard, 


Som. 


Crickla.de, 


Wilts. 


Penmgant, 


York. 


Croken Tor, 


Corn. 


Penn Castle, 


Salop. 


Dennis (dinas) 


Corn. 


Penn, 


Staff. 


Doncaster, 


York. 


Pen, 


Som. 


Dundran, 


Cumb. 


Pen, 


Bucks, 


Dundry Hill, 


Som. 


Penrhyn, 


Corn. 


Dunmow, 


Ess. 


Penrith, 


Cumb. 


Dunnose, 


I. of W. 


Penshurst, 


Suss. 


Dunstable, 


Bed. 


Pcntir, 


Corn. 


Fendraeth Hill, 


Dur. 


Pentridge, 


Wilts. 


Fur Tor, 


Dev. 


Peuton, 


Hants. 


Hey Tor, 


Dev. 


Pentwyn, 


Heref. 


High Down, 


Herts. 


Penyard, 


Herefo 


/^Chester (cefn), 


Heref. 


Penylan, 


Heref. 


JOnsworth, 


Herts. 


Penzance, 


Corn. 


Keynton , 


Shrop. 


Tormarton, 


Glouc. 


~Lexdon, 


Ess. 


&c, &c. 





407 



As proofs of Celtic settlements in other countries of 
Europe we have pens, dims, thors, and bryns, &c, as Pen- 
march, Pe?zherf, Brittany ; Pmdus, Greece ; Taurus, Asia ; 
the Ap-/>£72-nines ; Campo^mum, now Kempten ; Taro- 
dumim, now Dornstadt, in Germany ; Thun, Switzerland ; 



1 This is one of the numerous cases occurring where a name is 
made up of two synonyms, sometimes of different, sometimes of allied 
languages. Both here are Celtic ; so also Brandon, Pendennis, Penrhyn. 
Brinton, Cotswold, Pembury, Penton, on the contrary, combine Celtic 
and Anglo-Saxon. 



408 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



'Meloditnum (Melun) ; ~Lugduimm 'Lyons), \ T erod//;?nm (Ver- 
dun), in France ; Lugdunum (Le3'den) in Holland ; Braun- 
berg, Bren-den-\z.o$, Bran-den-hurg, in Germany ; Dzndy- 
mus, in Phrygia: Pentelicus, in Greece; Tyrol, &C. 1 



(b.) Celtic Names of Rivers and Streams in Britain 2 (omitting Wales 
and Scotland). 

Almost all the chief rivers of England bear Cymric 
appellations. Cymric words applied to water, running 
water, rivers, brooks, are: Aw, wy, dwr, water; Ui,avon, 
flowing water, collection of waters ; wysg, water in rapid 
motion ; rhyd, stream, also a ford across a stream ; rial's, 
an archaic word for brook ; iiant, a stream, or valley. 

Examples in Wales : Avon and dwr are common nouns, 
applied, with some other qualifying term, in a multitude of 
cases. Tav, Taw, Tawe, Tony, Tcivi, apparently compounds 
of aw, are familiar names, some of them being names of 
many streams. Dwrdwy, or Dyfr&wy, Wysg, Rhetdiol, 
Wy, Gwi-li, Llu-gwy, Ldrcy, ~Da.udd:cr. 



hdur 


Suss. 


Dee (dv. T ) 


Chesh. 


Av.nc 


Dev. 


Derwent 


Lane. 


Anney 


Dev. 


Dcrwent 


Yorks. 


Avon 


Glouc. 


Derwent 


Derb. 


A von 


Wore. 


Dour 


Kent. 


Avon 


Hants. 




Heref. 


A.xc 


Dev. 


Dourwater 


Yorks. 


C :!..'. V 


Cumb. 




Corn. 


Ca\der 


Lane. 


Durbeck 


:. 


CaXdcr 


York. 


Esk 


Dev. 


Dartnt 


Kent. 


Ex 


Dev. 


Dart 


Dev. 


■ 


Corn. 


Darwen 


1 . . 




Cumb. 



1 Comp. Diefenbai . . ii. pt. i. p. 3; 

• Comp. Vilmar, On Hessian Zeits< 

des Vereins, for 1837, p. 255; Adelung, '.' , ii- 57 ; 

, ii. p. 



ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES. 



409 



Med way 




Kent. 


Thames (W. Tafwys). 


Nader 




Wilts. 


Thur Norf. 


Oitsebum 


(Wy 


sg). 


Washburn (Wysg). 


Rhea 




Staff. 


Wey Dorset. 


Rhcy 




Wilts. 


Wey Surrey. 


Severn 






Wye Heref. 


Stour 




Ess., &c. 


Wye Hants. 


Tees 




Durham. 


Wyre Lane. 



&c, &c. 

A multitude of our English rivers, again, have names, 
purely Celtic, expressing a certain quality, such as colour, 
smoothness, roughness, noisiness, slowness, briskness, &c. 
Dulas and Dou-glas both mean dark brook, from die, dark, 
and dais, old W. for brook, still used in South Wales, but 
still more in Ireland. 



&c. 



Aire 


(W. araf, slow), 


York. 


Arav 


(W. araf, slow), 




A run 


(W. garw, rough), 


Suss. 


Arrow 


(W. garw, rough), 


Heref. 


Cam 


(W. cam, crooked), 


Glouc. Ess, 


Cam 


Id. 


Cambr. 


Ca/nbeck 


Id. 


Cumb. 


CamM 


Id. 


Corn. 


Crcke 


(W. crech, rugged), 


Lane. 


Crouch 


(W. croch, loud), 


Ess. 


Deben 


(W. dyfn, deep), 


Suff. 


Dove 


(W. dof, quiet, tame), 


Derb. 


Esk 


(W. gwisgi, fern, wisgi, 


Devon. 




quick, brisk, gay), 


Cumb. &c. 


Gara 


(W. garw, rough), 




G arrow 


(W. garw, rough), 


Heref. 


Lavant 


(W. llefn, smooth), 


Sussex. 


Lcden 


(W. llydan, broad), 


Glouc. 


Leddm 


Id. 


Heref. 


Leven 


(W. llefn, smooth), 


Cumb. &c. 


Morcambe Bay 


(\V. mur, sea; cam, crooked; 
a tortuous estuary), 




Rothcr 


(W. ruthro, to rush), 


Sussex. 


Wear 


(W. gwyro, to deviate, wan- 
der), 


Dur. 


Yar 


(W. garw, rough), 


Norf. 


Yarrow 


Id. 





410 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

It may be doubted whether the Lune, the Allan, the 
Ellen, the Aln, and others of like elements, are not from 
the W. alon, harmony, a/aw, music ; or from alwyn, white, 
fair ; or again from elain, fair, shining, splendid. Corn, 
elyn ; Ir. aluin. The names Ribble( 1 ), Invell, Ouse, Tyne, 
are obscure. 7>ent is probably but a contracted form of 
Da rent, Derwent, from dwr, and Ouse from Wysg. 

In continental countries known to have been inhabited 
by the Celtic race, we find numerous streams bearing 
primitive names, identical in signification with those of 
Welsh, Scotch, and English rivers. In France: Avon, 
joining the Loire ; Avon, joining the Seine ; Calavon, 
Gaxumna, IslaXrona, X^ranius, Dor&ogne, Axitnra, Dru- 
entia, Thuvr, Durd&n, Dozirdon, Douxon. In Germany : 
The Lahn, Kxgana, Merz'na, Oder, Durbach, £> iir renba.ch, 
Dumhach, Duren, Rhine, Rcgen ; and, perhaps, the 
Ezsa.cn, Esc/zaz, Ezsc/iba.ch, Etscliba.cn, EsclieVQrm\n, Ags- 
bach, &c. 2 In Spain : The Douro, Torio, Duerna., DuraXon, 
Avono, In Hungary : The T/iuroig, Waag. In Italy : 
The Aufcnxe, Aventia., Savone, Avens. 

1 On the name Ribble, the Rev. James North, M.A., of Liverpool, 
after the appearance of our first edition furnished the following 
annotation : — " The name by which Ptolemy designates it i 
compounded surely thus — B:l, the deity, and Is, water, and whence, 
obiter, our ice, another English word in almost its original Celtic purity. 
The ultimate syllable is plainly the Roman termination, and if the 
penult follows the same course, it perhaps embodies the word 
mums. If not, what is it but the Celtic ? Might we therefore saj 
Chaldaic affix to Bel, • denoting an attribute or an additional 

name, which took the form f Amnion in Egypt and Palestine. The 
direct translation of Bel-is into Latin was Rivus Beli ; and what is 
that but Ribble- Many of ur Westmoreland names for things and 
places would bear out your ideas forcibly." The " Del " theory is doubtful. 

: In fact, it is the I . nd none is more competent 

to pronounce an opinion — that almost every river name in North 
Germany is of Celtic ori 

. &c, i- p. • • 



ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES. 



411 



(c.) Celtic Names of Valleys, Dales, &c., in England (omitting Wales 
and Scotland.) 

Welsh words signifiying various kinds of surface de- 
pression are the following : dol, a dale ; cwm, a hollow, 
bottom, dingle ; nant, a dingle, also a brook (Corn, nans ; 
Arm. nant) ; til, a recess, corner (Corn, til, a recess ; Ir. 
kil, cul, Arm. kil.) l Examples in Wales : ZWbadarn, 
Cze/wbran, Nantmel, Nanteos, Cz'/maenllwyd, GY/bebyll, 
Do/gelley. 



Ap-pledur-comb I. of W. 


Compton 


Som. 


Butcombe 


Som. 


Crowcombe 


Som. 


Chalacombe 


Dev. 


Da/ton 


Lane. 


Chumleigh 


Dev. 


Dolton 


Dev. 


Combe 


Dev. 


Dawlish 


Dev. 


Combe 


Som. 


Dawley 


Salop. 


Combe 


Oxf. 


Facomb 


Hants. 


Combe 


Hants. 


Gatcombe 


Glouc. 


CombsvmerQ 


Chesh. 


llfcacombe 


Dev. 


Comberton 


Wore. 


Kilbuvn 


Mid. 


Combeabbas 


Som. 


Kildanes 


Lane. 


Combelong 


Oxf. 


Kildale 


Yorks. 


Combeheld 


Wore. 


Kilham 


Yorks. 


Combe Florey 


Som. 


Killpeck 


Heref. 


Combhay 


Som. 


Kilmersdon 


Som. 


Combmart'm 


Dev. 


Kilsby 


North. 


Con: ?)pyne 


Dev. 


Kilworth 


Leic. 


Compton 


Surr. 


Paracombe 


Dev. 


Cumberland 


abounds in cums 


, as noticed by 


one of 


native rhymers 


— 






"Th 


ere's G\\';/zwhitton, (Jzmwhinton, Cumranton, 




Cumrangon, Cmnrew, 


and Cum catch ; 




And mony mair dims i' 


the country, 






But nin wi' C'K/;.'divock can match." 





1 Kil, in Irish, has been extensively applied in the sense of an 
enclosure or retreat of a sacred nature (like Han, in Welsh); but this is 
a secondary use of the word — a specific and religious use. But the 
original idea is a narrowing, a dyke, a recess ; and with this the Cymric 
adj. cul, narrow, agrees. 



412 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

AViltshire is equally rich, the name Combe, Coombs, in 
some of its forms, being" frequently borne not only by 
places, but from them by families. 

The word nant has been left by the ancient inhabitants 
in many a corner of England, but it survives chiefly in the 
parts nearer the borders of Wales, and in Cornwall. 



Nantg'isstl 


Corn. 


Naunton 


Wore 


Nantwich 


Chesh. 


Pennans 


Corn. 


Naunton 


Glouc. 


Trenans 


Corn. 


Ay;; 'he ad 


Cumb. 







On the Continent are : Nantes, Nantua., Nancy, in 
France ; and Val di Nant, Nant T)a.x\t, Nant Bourant, <5cc, 
in Switzerland. In the grandest depths of the Savoyard 
Alps, near Chamounix, several Nants still survive ; as 
Naut-hx\x.r\, Nant Bourout, ¥>or\-nant, Nant-xvoix — in short, 
" nant " is a common name for mountain torrents in the 
Mont Blanc range — a fact very remarkable, as showing 
that these Celtic tribes had penetrated into these distant 
solitudes, not as fugitives seeking shelter, but as settled 
inhabitants — the name-givers of the regions, and that the 
names had become so current and settled under their 
influence that no power of new-comers and new languages 
has been able to dislodge them. They are enigmas to 
German and French writers who look not into a Celtic 
dictionary, and arc derived by some of them from natare, 
to swim, " because of the water that is th 

(i/.) Cities or Fortresses, Towns, Homesteads, &c, 
Celti "... 

Cymric words in use are: I . •', tre, • r, as Bodederxi 
(Edern's abode, Tranadog Madog's home), riarvon 

(the fortress in Arvon), &c. The prefix tre has been 
largely used in some counties in n -oores 

of farmhouses in Pembrokeshire or Carmartl alone 



ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES. 



413 



being so designated. To the word tre> signifying abode or 
home, is generally added the name of the person who 
formed a settlement or built a house on the spot. 1 The 
prefix cacr, a fortified place, almost invariably marks a 
work of defence of great antiquity — in the majority of cases 
coeval with Roman or even ante-Roman times. 

The following are a few from among the multitude of 
names of this class found in England : — 



Bodmin 


Corn. 


Cargo 


Cumb. 


Bodibam 


Suss. 


Carbarn 


North. 


Bodenham 


Heref. 


Carhampton 


Som. 


Bodney 


Norf. 


Cark'm 


Yorks. 


Bothel 


Cumb. 


Carperly 


Yorks. 


Botbergest 


Heref. 


Carrocke 


Cumb. 


Botley 


Berks. 


Carlisle 


Cumb. 


Botley 


Hants. 


Daventry 


North. 


Bralntrce 


Ess. 


Tr egonna 


Corn. 


Caerwent 


Mon. 


Tregony 


Corn. 


Caerleon 


Mon. 


Trcllgga 


Corn. 


Carden 


Chesh. 


Trelow 


Corn. 


Carthorpe 


Yorks. 


Tr eneglos 


Corn. 


Carhallock 


Corn. 


TrcsiUan 


Corn. 


Careby 


Lin. 


TVethurgi 


Corn. 


Carcolston 


Nott. 


T«vissick 


Corn. 


Carbrooke 


Norf. 


Trevulga 


Corn. 


Carburton 


Nott. 


Tr ewadlock 


Corn. 


Cardeston 


Salop. 


Truron 


Corn. 


Carey 


North. 







Towns named from their situation on the waterside are 
numerous. The Celtic dwr, water, sometimes taking the 
form dour or fur, is often found in names of Continental 
towns as well as rivers. Tours, ancient Turones', Tourna.i, 
ancient 7lvnacum : Douvres, ancient Dubris : several 



1 The terminating try, in Oswestry, is not, as some have supposed, the 
Welsh trc, but the English "tree," as applied to the Cross. The Welsh 
name is Crocs-Oswallt, Oswald's Cross — a translation of the old 
" Oswald's-tree." 



414 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

ancient Bi///riges in Gaul, indicating the meeting of two 
waters. Probably the incipient Bi (bis) was prefixed by 
the Romans to mark the confluence of two streams, both 
called dwr or lur by the natives. Instances in England 
are : Dover, ancient Dubris ; Diking, Dorchester, Durley, 
a village in Hants ; Dursley ; ibf<?;rcambe, W. m6r, sea, 
combe, a valley, or cam, crooked; WcymovA\\, W. I . water; 
Aberioxdi, village in Yorkshire ; W. abcr, a confluence, <5cc. 

Less obvious Celtic derivations, but still genuine, are 
such as these : Z^Vzcoln, W. Hyn, a pool, lake, and coin, Lat. 
Colonia ; in Ptolemy's Greek AtvSov, the dun or place of 
strength, or high place, on the llyn, or lin, pool — a name 
identical in etymology therefore with London; Gl .vcester, 
W. gloyzv, fair, pure, bright, old W. name C Man- 

chester (W. man, place, settlement) : Tiverton W. - r wr, dwfr, 
water) — the town on the water — Tiverton being situated at 
the confluence of the rivers Exe and Loman ; Durham 

Lat. Dunelm, W, dwr, and Xorse holm, an island , Leland 
and others tell us, was originally a rock forming a river 
island — but how the n was introduced into the Latin 
Duwelm is not very clear; York W. Evraw± . old W. 
name Caer-Evrawg. The Cotswold Hills (W. coed, wood, and 
A.-Sax. weald, also wood), display the primitive Celtic and 
its Saxon translation in one word. Cumberland is the land 
of the Cymri or Cumbri. The people of " Dev were 

by the Romans named Damnonu, in imitation of the Celtic 
Dyfnaint (W. dyfn, deep, and naint, pi. : , the 

land of deep valleys or dingles. I 
written " Corn Wales " W. corn, a horn. ] a, and 

A.-Sax. wealkas, tin- Welsh , i.e., strangers or foreigners — 
a name applied by the Teutonic race to all t them- 

selves. Wiltshire — the shire of //'//ton — the 

Wealhas or Welsh, ;icsof 

language, laws, and customs had died out in tl. - pans. 



ETHNOLOGICAL VALUE OF LOCAL NAMES. 415 

Many of the Waltons were probabby "Welsh towns," as 
Nuces Gallica?, walnuts, were "Welsh-nuts." (Germ. 
Walsche nuss, i.e., foreign nut.) Dorset, the settlement of 
the Dnrotriges, as they were called by the Romans (W. dwr 
water, and trigo to dwell) dwellers near the water or sea ; 
and so on in great numbers. 

In short, to trace all the Celtic elements found in names 
of places in England would occupy scores of pages. Let 
the above suffice as a fraction of a body of evidence to the 
ethnologist most interesting. Whithersoever the Cymry 
have gone, whether into the body of a new race by junc- 
tion with their conquerors, or to find shelter among their 
already teeming brethren in Wales, the memorials of their 
former residence in England remain unobliterated — well- 
nigh unaltered — by change of language or lapse of time. 
These names are not those of regions, kingdoms, or a 
whole land, which might have caught hold of their objects 
fortuitously, or might afford room for uncertainty as to 
their real meaning and origin ; but they are the names of 
hundreds and hundreds of the rivers, brooks, hills, vales, 
hamlets and homesteads of England. They mark the 
places of chief importance in early periods of society, and 
in times when the inhabitants had to watch their foes from 
their dins, and protect themselves from attack in their caers. 
They lived in the sheltered dingles [nants), pastured their 
flocks in the fertile vales [dots), marked their localities and 
judged of distances by the highest surrounding hills or 
mountains (pens, craigs, and tors) , and drew their sub- 
dividing lines along the course of the rivers and brooks 
[avons, dwrs, rhyds, &c.) They gave all these names, 
according to some specific feature in each, constituting its 
differentia, and these names and objects have come down, 
or rather have remained stationary, witnessing the lapse 
of many ages, until wc have made our appearance on the 



416 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

scene to read their history, admire their appropriateness, 
and dream of the long past which their scanty light 
enables us faintly to discern. They speak to us in the 
language of the Cyniri, and, amongst other things declare, 
in clear accents, that the Cyniri, or Cymry, not only lived 
at the foot of those pens and craigs, on those dots, and in 
those cacrs, but that when disturbed and dispossessed, they 
still continued so long and held such place of influence 
amongst their conquerors that the names of all the chief 
features of the country, although purely Cymric, became 
familiar to the Saxons, were adopted by them in detail, 
and became part and parcel of their own tongue. 

2. The Celtic local names of England as furnishing 
evidence of admixture of race. 

Is it not a fact virtually indisputable that the adoption 
by a new people of local names imposed by their pre- 
decessors involves conditions which unavoidably imply 
race-amalgamation r The case is precisely analogous to 
that of language. The language of an intrusive people 
cannot be penetrated and tinged, deeply and permanently, 
by that of the people subdued — as we have proved the 
English language to have been by the Ancient British — 
in the absence of that prolonged and familiar intercourse 
which could not fail of issuing in those social and 
domestic ties, that mutual good understanding and pro- 
gressive assimilation which, by degrees, would obliterate 
all prominent distinctions of race. That the Anglo-Saxons 
should receive the geographical nomenclature of the 
Britons, it', as argued by some, the Britons had been swept 
from the land, must for ever remain inexplicable. IT . • 
assumption of the displacement of the British race is so 
gratuitous that had it not somehow become the basis i 
article of national faith, it could deserve no serious • 



LOCAL NAMES AS EVIDENCE OF ADMIXTURE. 417 

sideration. That it is entirely unauthorised by history, the 
reader, we would fain hope, is by this time fully persuaded. 
For any reliable and distinct statements which have 
reached us to the contrary, we are at perfect liberty to 
maintain that the Britons were no more displaced by the 
Saxons than were the Saxons afterwards by the Danes or 
Normans. They had not been driven out by the Romans ; 
they had formed the habit, so to speak, of clinging to their 
native soil under the rule of strangers ; the new rule of the 
Saxons found them a people partly predisposed, if an heroic 
effort for independence failed of success, to submit, and 
continue on the land which from time immemorial their 
fathers had called their own. Only the most stubbornly 
persistent patriots, too dazzled by the brilliant prospects of 
liberty to see the inevitable/^/ of their national overthrow, 
continued to struggle, receding further and further to the 
West with the setting sun of their hopes, and entrenching 
themselves at last in the natural fortresses of Cambria. 
Never did they cease, for seven hundred years, to do two 
things — fight the Saxon, and pronounce maledictions on 
those " recreant " brethren of theirs, who, by entering into 
"league and confederacy with the Saxons," took the 
" crown of monarchy from the nation of the Cymry." 1 

At the same time, though local names cannot fail to be 
of interest, furnishing, as they do, material proof in aid of 
our general argument, they must be allowed to have a 
limit in ethnological value, and that limit must be defined. 

Topographical names, traceable to a certain language, 
are witnesses to the settlement in those localities of a 
people speaking that language, and that they were either 
the first or the most influential, or the longest dwellers 
there, so that the rivers, lakes, mountains, &c, ever after 
bore the designations they had impressed upon them. 
1 Sec Triads, Myv. Arch, of Wales, ii. 58. 



41 8 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

But they do not absolutely prove the aboriginal character 
of their authors ; for in times when nomadic tribes moved 
freely from place to place, repeated occupation might occur 
before a settlement prolonged enough to tabulate the 
natural features of the country under fixed names was 
effected. Nor do they absolutely prove, of themselves, 
that the prolonged settlers who gave them, did not after- 
wards move off to foreign climes, and have a long series of 
successors to their ancient property before the properly 
historic age arrived, and that property was permanently 
appropriated. To make their evidence conclusive as to 
this matter, the witness of history must be introduced. 

But granting all deductions and qualifications, topo- 
graphical names have a substantial value in proof of race 
settlements and of national incorporation. Their very 
nature determines the race to which they originally belonged. 
Their transmission could only be effected by intercourse. 
In those days, when the Ancient British local names of 
England were transfused into the alien Anglo-Saxon 
speech, there existed no works on geography, no accurately 
drawn and coloured maps, no surveys with a well defined 
nomenclature, whereby, without personal association and 
oral teaching, the long imposed names of river, crag, and 
forest, fortress, road, and mountain, could be accurately 
learned. The Britons had no Itinerary describing their 
highways and military posts, no Notitia Imperii, naming 
every town and castle, river, marsh, and mountain in the 
land, by the reading of which on their casual discovery, 
and after the gigantic achievement of learning the unknown 
tongue in which they were written— a practical impos- 
sibility on the hypothesis that the whole race had suddenly 
and totally disappeared— the new comers might learn the 
names which had been in use. How, then, could the 
Anglo-Saxon come at a knowledge of the <;; . ., the pens, 



VALUE OF TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 419 

the dols, 8zc. ? How could he manage to make his own 
language talk of the geographical divisions of the country 
— the cantrcds (W. canf, hundred, and tref> dwelling, 
abode), the commols (W. cwmmwd, subdivision of a hundred), 
the tres t &c, &c. ? Imagination can only descry one way. 
The Anglo-Saxon accomplished this difficult task in Celtic 
nomenclature — so uncongenial to ag^es of war and semi- 
barbarism — by the slow but certain method of personal 
dntercourse with the ancient inhabitants. . The land, we 
argue, was still in the main peopled by the old race — now, 
indeed, in a subject state — tilling the fields, clearing the 
forests, forging war implements, and fighting battles for 
their masters, and by degrees winning freedom and citizen- 
ship by length of service and accumulated wealth. Many 
portions of the country, many important towns in the heart 
of whatisnow "Old England," were still entirely in thehands 
of the Britons, who maintained their own usages, laws, and 
language intact, acknowledging the Anglo-Saxons only as 
nominal masters, and exercising over them the kind of 
influence which the pupils of the Romans, unsuccessful 
now in war, might be expected to use towards the un- 
tutored, but strenuous children of Schleswig and Holstein, 
By degrees, the geography of the country would be 
learned ; the very dingles, rills, memorial stones, crom- 
lechs, camps, castles, nay, the individual homesteads of 
the different neighbourhoods, would become familiar by 
their own proper Celtic names ; the native language would 
die away into the aggressive Saxon, and the native popu- 
lation itself, forgetting old grudges, would form with the 
ruling race an undistinguishable mass. 

The three following positions are established by history 
.and the nature of the case. 

1. Except where a developed literature exists, unless 

EE 2 



420 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

there be a fusion of peoples, no fusion of their languages 
takes place. 

2. Where no fusion of languages occurs, in the absence 
of writing, transmission of local names will be scanty. 

3. Where the language of a conquering race is found to 
be extensively charged with the common vocables and 
local names of the conquered, prolonged social converse 
and commingling of blood are fairly deducible. 

Let those who cannot deny the Celtic origin of thousands 
of the geographical names of England explain how these 
could have been adopted on any other hypothesis than 
that now maintained. 

The aboriginal race of Britain, unfortunate in being 
commemorated by little of what may be termed authentic 
history, and in having this little discredited by its alliance 
with that mythic and traditional lore which at least re- 
presents the spirit rather than the form and reality of their 
existence, are still fortunate in having the evidence of 
their earliest possession of the soil, and of a language of 
a well-ascertained type, inscribed on the rocks and moun- 
tains, and over all the great natural features of thecountrv, 
as with a pen of adamant, indelibly and for ever. Nations 
have existed which have passed away leaving no trace of 
and eventful histories except a few scattered names 
of places, enshrining, as the amber does the fly, memen- 
l ies of their speech, and leavi the research and 

learning of the ethi lecture to what stock and 

era they belonged ; and here ce of 

lo ■! names are perfect. 1: ■ old Britons have not this 
poetic advantage; they havi itirely dis 

md therefore, while their identity is better authentic. 
1I1 ■ charm lent by mystery and distance is not cast ar 
their • ton ti 1 the same e 



ORDER OF OCCUPATION SHOWN BY NAMES. 421 

Not only the /act of the occupation of Britain by various 
races is attested by local names, but the very order of 
occupation is clearly defined. No student of these in- 
teresting and instructive relics can doubt that the oldest 
of them belong to the Celts and the more recent to Danes, 
Normans, and English. The primeval footprints have 
been trodden upon by less ancient travellers, and the 
impressions made by these are again traversed, in some 
cases nearly effaced, by their pursuers. All the impres- 
sions bear a character, and are as incapable of being con- 
founded with each other or referred to the same age or 
people as the legends of coins, the inscriptions of monu- 
ments, or the caligraphy of manuscripts of different eras 
and countries. The names which stretch back to the 
remotest historic, and doubtless to pre-historic times, and 
which have been articulated with more or less uniformity 
by the tongues of all the generations which have come and 
gone during the ages, as those of mountains, rivers, 
estuaries, unquestionably belong to the Celtic race. The 
great natural strongholds, which became in course of time 
cities, are either Celtic or Roman, or Roman and Celtic 
joined, as London, Chester, Manchester. Towns, again, 
which bear purely Saxon names are of more modern growth. 
The creeks, headlands, and maritime positions which have 
Norse appellations — the wicks, the nesses, and holms — are 
easily referred to the times of Scandinavian incursions, 
Norman local names are few, and younger than the Danish ; 
while properly English names, though numerous, are 
demonstrably of very recent birth. 

In some cases we find the history of a thousand years, 
with the order of occupation, and the nationality of the 
name-givers, compressed in the hieroglyphics of a single 
local name. DuM/k/'ton has the same idea of an entrenched 
place thrice repeated, covering, in due order of succession, 



42 2 THE PEDIGREE OF THE EXGEISH. 

Celtic, Saxon, and later Saxon or English periods ; PENt- 
lowhill, in Essex (Celt, pen, A. -Sax. hlaew, a heap, Engl, 
hill), BRlXc/cwhill, in Somerset, " hill " again thrice re- 
peated in different succeeding tongues, cover pre-Roman, 
Roman and Saxon, and post-Saxon ages. Moving" 
onwards and to shorter periods, we find in Chesterton the 
Roman and Saxon ages combined ; in Sandwich, and Fish- 
guard the Saxon and Danish ; in Ash/y-de-la-Zouch the 
Danish and Norman-French ; in Richmond (riche-mont) 
and Montgomery, Norman-French itself; in Haverford,. 
Norman-French [haver 1 , a port and English. But in 
DourwdXcr (Yorkshire), the great gulf from Ancient British 
to English times is completely bridged across, leaving 
conjecture to say how the Celtic dwr (water , was allowed 
so long to remain un wedded to a sympathetic synonym, and 
the modern "water" came at last to see in it a thing of its 
own flesh and blood. 

It is much to be desired that the local names of Britain 
afforded a sufficient light upon the supposed priority of the 
Gaelic to the Cymric tribes as colonists. The test-words 
wysg, ben, inver, bally, &c, hitherto so much relied upon 
as evidence of prior occupation by the Gael of North 
and East Scotland and Ireland, as well as parts of central 
I Britain, are quite unsatisfactory. These words mayhavebeen 
present in ancient Cymric even if absent from modern Welsh, 
for an enormous portion of the language has changed, and 
the value of the theory now examined depends exclusively 
on the supposition of a stability in human unwritten 
speech through thousands of years which all experience 
disproves. We rather rely on the probabilities of the case, 

1 Uorrowcd by French from Celtic, and identified with aber and . 
The occurrence of this word in Normandy, as at Havre de Gi 

, &c, has already been noted. It is more frequently 
in Brittany, as Aber-vrsich, >.\:c. 



ORDER OF OCCUPATION SHOWN BY NAMES. 423 

as arising from ethnological and historic facts. It is more 
likely that the tribes which pushed their way farthest, and 
have in all historic times dwelt in the remotest quarters of 
North Britain and Ireland were the first to colonise these 
islands. New arrivals would be more likely to urge 
forward the earlier occupiers to fresh pasturage and settle- 
ments, than to outstrip them in the race ; and that dis- 
embarkation from the Continent took place in all oases on 
the South Coast is morally certain. But if shades of dis- 
tinction can be found in abcr and inver, pen and ben, tref 
and bally, assigning the former to the Cymric, the latter 
to the Gaelic dialect, by all means let probability, having 
otherwise gained a footing, have its position thereby to 
some small extent strengthened. As wysg, however, and 
gwisg (see p. 38, note), are to this day present in Welsh, 
and pen, also present in it, is almost as near ben as it can 
well be without being identical, it is fair to surmise that 
bally and inver may have once been the common property 
of Cymric and Gaelic — in fact that the former is only an 
euphonised form of ban, high, and lie, a place, all cities in 
early times being places of strength built generally on 
bold and high situations ; and that inver and abcr only 
represent the different ways in which the ancient scribes 
imitated the native pronunciation of the same thing, 
a confluence of waters — an hypothesis rendered highly 
probable by the occurrence of other variations of the terms 
on the Continent, as Havrc-de-Grace, ^4w-anches, already 
mentioned. 

On the whole, therefore, although not assigning the first 
importance to local names as proofs of race-admixture, we 
are far from considering them as insignificant in their 
bearing on the argument, Where they fail to prove, they 
render probable ; where they fail to render probable, they 
at least significantly suggest. 



424 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

SECTION IV. 

English Proper Names and Surnames. 

We have seen it argued with great warmth, and equal 
ignorance, that since Englishmen are not called by Celtic 
names they have no participation in Celtic blood. A 
sufficient reply to this would be, that since Englishmen are 
not called after the names of their alleged forefathers, 
Hengist, Horsa, Cerdic, Ella, Ercenwine, Ida, and their 
distinguished pirate companions — therefore they have not 
descended from them, and since there remains no more 
probable ancestry, they have descended from none, but 
are veritably sons of the soil — indigence aborigines: or, if this 
be thought too absurd, then, as the Ancient Britons are 
declared by authentic history to be inhabitants of Great 
Britain before Hengist and Horsa's arrival, Englishmen 
must have descended from them. 

But, in truth, strange as it may seem to some, the 
bearing of personsal proper names and surnames on the 
core of the subject is very slight. We introduce them 
here, rather with a view of demonstrating" this fact, and 
thus of disencumbering the question of any adventitious 
matter, than of adding" material force to the argument. 
At the same time we shall be treading on the heels of 
the subject, and shall occasionally really touch it, adding 
meantime a few points of specific interest to the historian 
and ethnologist. 

i. Surnames a modern invention in England. 

All names, philosophically considered, are simple signs 
to distinguish individuals. A person would naturally 
be described by some per »nal mark, ownership, or 
locality. The nations of antiquity usually gave a person 
one name — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob ; 1 'ericles, Themistocles, 



SURNAMES A MODERN INVENTION. 425 

Phidias ; Caradog, Taliesin, Grwyddno ; Edwin, Gurth, 
Harold, Rollo, &c. To define him more specifically, 
he was called the son of such a person, or (inhabitant 
understood) of such a place. 

The Romans surpassed other early nations in the 
multiplication of names. Caius Julius Caesar, Publius 
Cornelius Scipio, Cnaeus Julius Agricola, Caius Cornelius 
Tacitus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, &c. The object was 
twofold — definition and dignity. 

The Normans first established the practice of surnames 
in England, and probably first adopted it after their arrival 
here. Surnames — that is, names in addition to the single 
personal name, now called the " Christian " name, and 
descending in the same family from generation to 
generation — were not known among the Britons and 
Saxons. Even after the Norman Conquest, the practice 
was not introduced among the English population, so far 
as reliable records testify, for one or two hundred 3 T ears. 

In Domesday Book, the Norman families often bear 
names of addition, descending to their posterity. Darcy, 
Arundel, Devereux, Perci, Laci, are examples. 

As late as the fifteenth century surnames were only of 
partial use in England. Thus in 1406, a person describes 
himself as Willielmus filius Adae Emmotson, who, in 1416, 
is Willielmus Emmotson — showing progress towards a 
settled surname. Another curious example ; a person 
described as Johannes filius Willielmi filii Johannis de 
Hunshelf, appears soon after as Johannes Wilson. 1 

The length of Welsh and Irish pedigrees is proverbial. 
In the later Middle Ages a man had one name, and was 
defined as the Mac or Ap (son) of another, he of another, 
and so on, in long series. In Wales, in the 15th and 16th 
centuries, the patronymic ap or ab is used not unfrequently 
1 Confer Penny Cyclop, vol. xvi. p. 71. 



426 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

as many as six times, ex. gr. Gruffydd ap Will, ap Rob. 
ap Cadwal. ap Mered. ap Hug. ap .levan. A document of 
the year 1460, relating to the Herbert family, is signed by 
two gentlemen styling themselves, " levan ap Rhydderch 
ap levan Lloyd, Esq.," and " Howell ap David ap levan ap 
Rhys, Gent./' followed by three others styling themselves 
" Bards. 5 ' l But early British history shows the same usage 
as existing, though in more moderate form, among the 
ancient Cymry. Caractacus is often styled Caradogap Bran, 
and his grandson was Cod ap Cyllin. 

As specimens of the names prevailing among the better 
classes of Wales in the 13th and 14th centuries, we may 
quote from the lists still preserved in the Bibliotlicquc 
Royalc, in Paris, of whole companies of Welsh soldiers 
who had fled their own country, and entered the service 
of the French King. The name Gallois, or de Gallois, is 
not uncommon in France, and is known to be borne by 
descendants of these Welsh refugees. The foremost of 
these was a young chieftain of the family of Prince 
Llewelyn, called by the French Evain, or Yvainde Gallcs, 
(Owain of Wales;, an especial favourite at the French Court. 
He and John Wyn s or Win, Robin ap Llwydin, Edward 
ap Owen, and Oicon ap Griffith, were all captains of troops 
of Welsh soldiers in the wars of France against England. 
Among the 100 Welshmen, more or less, following the 
fortunes of brave Owain, or Yvain de Gallcs, were men 
bearing the following names : 

Hywel Ddu (standard bearer). Llewelyn ap Jorwerth. 

Morgan de s (ap) David. [euan ap David B 

Einion de (ap) Hywel. Madog du ap Greffin. 



1 Fenton's Pembrokeshire, p. .17, App. 

* The French substitutes the .:'. for ap in some though not in all 
cases. 



SURNAMES AS PROOF OF RECENT ADMIXTURE. 427 

Gruffydd de (ap) Ionvrch. 1 Iorwerth ap Grox ap David. 

Ithel de (ap) Iorwerth. Cadwaladr Hael. 

Madog de (ap) Gruffydd. Ieuan ap Gruffin ap Rait. 

Hywel de (ap) Einion. Robin Uchel. 

Ioguen ap Morbran. Gwilym Gwenarth. 

Robin ap Bled. Einion ap David Sais. 

Gwilym Goch. Griffin ap Ieuan ap Roger. 

Ieuan Gwilym ap Ogwen. Hary Walice Mon. 3 
&c, &c. 

Here, and in the other lists of followers of John JVzh, s 
Robin ap Llwydin, Sec, such names as Ieuan, Hywel, Davydd, 
Gwilym, Robin, Gruffydd, abound. The same names occur 
often — a fact still observable in the onomatology of Wales. 
The few here pointed out are the chief names of the Welsh 
to this day, both Christian and surname : Jones, Davies, 
Williams, Roberts, Griffiths, Howells, are their Anglicised 
forms. Ieuan has propagated itself in a great variety of 
shapes, for from this one original appellative have descended 
the whole troop of John, Owen, Evan, Ievan, Jones,, 
loan, and a few others. 

2. The value of English surnames as proofs of inter- 
mixture. 

It must be confessed that English surnames, being the 
creations mostly of the last 400 years, can be of no value 
as evidence of early intermixture between Celts and S^lxons, 
though half the population were called Jones, Davies, 
Williams, or Roberts. They can only be proofs of recent 
intermixture. Multitudes of them are based on personal 
qualities, localities of birth, handicrafts, See (as were those 
of Wales, and as are those of Germany), and arc often 

1 A mistake apparently for Iorwerth. Many of the names, as given by 
Thierry, are evidently incorrectly spelled. 
~ Biblioth. Royale, Cabinet du Saint Esprit. 
3 Ibid. Titrcs Scellcs do Clairamboult, t. 114, fol. 8925. 



428 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

found to be not only pertinent and expressive, but even 
beautiful — while a large proportion must be allowed to be 
grotesque, ludicrous, absurd, and not a few even indecent. 
The Christian names of Modern England, so far from 
being either Celtic or Saxon in origin, strange to say, are 
in the major part derived from the Greek and Hebrew 
Scriptures. The influence of religion among "Welsh and 
English has expelled most of the national names of both 
racer., under the idea, perhaps, that they savoured of 
heathenism, substituting" others consecrated by Old and 
New Testament associations. The names which are now 
in common use, and which cannot be cast aside without 
apparent singularity, are only some fifty-three in number! 
The following twelve are constantly occurring : John, 
"William, Henry, George, James, Robert, Thomas, Francis, 
Charles, Edward, Richard, Samuel. Of these, four are 
Scripture names, four Norman, only one Saxon Edward , 
three are from other sources. Not one is purely British. 
Of the 41 other names, composing" the total 53, 28 are 
names of religion : so that out of the 53 current names 
which distinguish the many millions of our male population, 
32, or three-fifths are taken, from the Scriptures'. If this were 
proof of piety, how pious were the people of England ! 
Twenty-five of the 53 are of Hebrew origin, so that, if 
modern names were sufficient evidence of consanguinity, a 
moiety of us must stand confessed as of the seed of faithful 
Abraham ! 

3. The disuse, in modern times, of Celtic and Saxon 
names. 

As far as personal nomenclature is co I, modern 

Celts and Saxons alike have denied their progenitors, 
calling themselves, as seen above, after the nam. 
strangers. foreign languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 



PERSONAL NAMES IN ENGLAND. 429 

have lent designations to five out of every seven of the 
males of England and Wales ! 

The Cymry have dropped the renowned old names, 

Caradog, Caswallon, Einion, Arthur, Cadwgan, 
Ednyfed, Cynvelin, Aneurin, Cynddehv, Rhiwallon, 
Taliesin, Merddin, Madog, Goronvvy, Edeyrn. 

And the English have abandoned their equally noble, 

Winfrid, Thorold, Ida, Harold, Aldre'd, Ailvvin, 
Egbert, Ella, Ethelbert, Ethelred, Kenelm, Oswald, 
Offa, Kenric, Ailred, Egfrid, Sigebert, Adda ; 

have never repeated even Hengist and Horsa, who at 
least had the merits of adventurous pioneers and successful 
colonists ; and of the illustrious names of their ancestors 
have honoured as they ought only Albert, Alfred, Edwin, 
and Edward. The Queen of England has added new 
lustre to the British Arthur ; by giving it a place in the 
royal circle, and it were well if so high an example were 
followed in many directions, both as to Celtic and 
Saxon names. 

In the names of females, the departure from the custom 
of our ancestors, both British nnd Anglo-Saxon, has been 
equally marked. Among the female names of the Anglo- 
Saxons were, 

Elfheld, Adeleve, Edburh, Algifa, Edgifa, Athelgifa, 
Winfreda, Ethelheld, Ethelfritha, Bertha, and Editha, 

of which the last two only have been retained. In the Cot- 
tonian MS. Tib. B. 5, the names of a whole Saxon family are 
given thus : — " Dudda was a husbandman in Haethfelda : 
and he had three daughters ; one was called Deorwyn, the 
other Deorswytha, and the third Golde. Wullaf, in Haeth- 
felda, hath Deorwyn for his wife ; and Aelfstan, at 
Kengawyrth, hath Deorswytha, and Ealhstan, the brother 



430 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

of Aelfstan married Golde." 1 We submit that we have here 
finer female names ''all of which are also beautifully 
significant in Anglo-Saxon) than our modern Florence, 
Augusta, Georgiana, Frances, Blanche, Henrietta, Char- 
lotte, Grace. 

4. Recent Celtic Names. 

If we look at the extent to which modern Celtic surnames 
prevalent in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, have found 
their way into England, and take this as evidence of inter- 
mixture in modern times, we shall doubtless build on a 
good foundation. Only let this branch of evidence be 
understood as applied with this limitation. Names, usually 
a msidered Welsh, which have a large place in every 
English Directory of our day — the London Post Office 
Directory especially — are the following : — Jones, Williams, 
Hughes, Thomas, Griffiths, Owen, Parry, Bowen, Lloyd, 
Lvans, Morgan, Jenkins, Lewis, Howell, Powell, Rees, 
■and Davies. Jones in the London Directory fills about halt 
the space occupied by the incomparable Smith. Will nuns 
fills lengthy columns ; also Griffiths, Thomas, Davies, 
Lloyd, &c, &c. The general conclusion to be drawn is, 
that the prospect of advancement in England has attracted 
large numbers from Wales within recent years. The process 
is still rapidly going forward : and it is observable that the 
Welshman, once he has acquired the manners, language, 
accent, of the Englishman, carries nothing in his complexion 
or physiognomy, and little now in his name, to distinguish 
him from the general type of Englishmen. 

But large as has been the influx of Welsh names, that ot 

Scotch and Irish has been far greater. If statistics . >f those 

who every year " cross the Tweed " and never return, and 

of those who come over from the Green Isle to make friends 

1 Comp. Turner's Hist, of the Angh-Saxt us, vol. iii. p. 9. 



CELTIC PERSONAL NAMES IN ENGLAND. 43 I 

with " Sassenach " were carefully taken, 1 perhaps many 
who believe to their great comfort in the Teutonic purity 
■of the English would feel a measure of dismay. Who 
can number 

The Camerons, Campbells, Craigs, Cunninghams, 

The Dixons, Douglases, Duffs, Duncans, 

The Grahams, Grants, Gordons, Guthries, 

The Macdonalds, Macgregors, Macleans, MacLeods, 

The Muirs, Munros, Murrays, Murdochs, 

The Reids, Robertsons, Rosses, and Scotts : 

And 

The O'Briens, O'Neills, O'Connors, Murphys, 
Dalys, Falloons, Donovans, Flannaghans, Mullonys, 
Sullivans, Bradys, Donnels, and Patricks, 

who contribute so much to the variety of our nomenclature 
and to the balance and suppleness of our national mind ? 
What should we do without the prudent painstaking 
Scotchman, quick in finding his opportunity, and never 
remiss in its improvement ? and what without the effer- 
vescent hearty Irishman, who hews our wood and draws 
our water, and withal substitutes elasticity for Teutonic 
rigidness, and relieves with poetry, humour, and intellectual 
vivacity our dull matter-of-fact uniformity — although in 
his natural unmixed state, he often occasions a huge 
amount of trouble r Welshman, Irishman, Scotchman, 
German, Frenchman — all come with a welcome to our all- 
absorbing nationality ; weld them all into one mass, and 
forth there comes a " good man and true," fit for any noble 
deed of mind or hand that mortal can perform ! As to the 
political problem offered by the Irishman, it is feared that 

1 From the Census of 1861. (See Papers, Sec, in Brit. Mas. vol. lii., 
part 1), we find that there were at that time in London, 

12 Scotchmen for every 1000 people in Scotland. 
15 Welsh • „ „ in Wales. 

18 Irish ,, ,, in Ireland. 



432 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the English legislature has scarcely yet apprehended 
rightly the temper and genius of his race. For ages, 
tyrannic force alone was used in their government. A 
philosophic study of the people, had our " legislators " 
been capable of it, would have shown that a frank and 
generous treatment, not unaccompanied by firmness, suited 
the case better than a suspicious hate-inspiring coercion. 
Irish disloyalty is the child of English love of force and 
hereditary routine, joined to foreign ecclesiastical inspira- 
tion. The former must cease, and the latter be blown out. 
That accomplished, the Irishman may become as loyal to 
the throne as he is brave in the field and eloquent in the 
forum. But always, as he merges nto our population and 
"becomes a Saxon," he forms a valuable element in the 
peerless race of the English. 

5. Teutonic Xames of Persons and Places in Wales. 

Xames, in Wales, are suggestive of large intermixture. 
It is now no uncommon thing to meet with Welsh-speaking 
persons bearing such names as Wilson, Saunders, White, 
Smith, Hooper, Marychurch, Warlow, Cleaton, Gibson, 
Norton, Johnston, Chambers, Mills, £cc. 

In the parts of Pembrokeshire colonised by Flemings, 
temp. Henry I., and earlier by Danes and Xormans, it may 
be expected that Teutonic names should abound ; and 
such, to a great extent, is the case. A multitude of names 
suggestive of Anglo-Saxon, Flemish, and Danish origin 
are to be found. In these districts, the language spoken 
is a kind of English. The areas occupied by the Saxon 
tongue and by Saxon and Xorse local and personal names, 
are about the same in extent, ami nearly coincide. 

About one-halfof Pembrokeshire is occupied by a pi 
of a mixed nationality speaking a modified English. 
Hence the name Anglia Transwalliana which Camden 



THE FLEMINGS IN PEMBROKESHIRE. 433 

somewhat aptly applied to the district, and which has 
since become current as "Little England beyond Wales." 
The observant enquirer at once sees here the marks of an 
ethnological intrusion in the personal appearance and 
speech of the inhabitants, and the personal and local names 
he encounters. The account usually given of the Flemish 
immigration, and, as a supposed consequence of the type of 
language found in the hundreds of Roose and Castle- 
martin, although scarcely sufficient to explain all the 
features of the case, may be taken as correct as far as it 
goes. In the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I., we 
are told by William of Malmesbury, Giraldus de Barri 
(12th century), Hollinshed, and others, great numbers of 
Flemings were encouraged or allowed to settle in the 
North of England, the reason for such encouragement 
being that Matilda (Maud), wife of the Conqueror, and 
mother of Rufus and Henry, was daughter of Baldwin, 
Earl of Flanders, and that the immigrants had been driven 
in a state of destitution from their former homes by a great 
inundation of the sea. Having multiplied and become 
troublesome in the north, and the Normans, already 
settled in Pembrokeshire, being at the same time molested 
by the Welsh, whose lands they had taken, Henry hit 
upon the expedient both of relieving the northern districts 
of a nuisance and of protecting his kinsmen, the Normans 
in Wales, by transferring the Flemings bodily into Pem- 
brokeshire, giving them a portion of the lands taken from 
the Welsh for their support and the duty of " repressing 
the brutal temerity of the Welsh," as W. of Malmesbury 
expresses it, as a pastime and feudal obligation. 

But it is to be noted that previous to the arrival of these 
particular Flemings in the North of England, a consider- 
able number of their countrymen had already come over 
in the miscellaneous multitude of the Conqueror's army. 

F F 



434 THE PEDIGREE OF THE E^ T GLISH. 

William, we have already seen, had sent his enticing pro- 
clamation to Flanders among other neighbouring states, 
inviting all who wished for conquest and booty in England 
to rank themselves as brothers in robbery under his 
standard ; and Malmesbury informs us that in Rufus's 
time such numbers of these people had come across the 
Channel that they appeared burdensome to the kingdom. 
The Flemings first settled in Rhos, according to the 
Annales Ccimbriac, in the year 1 107, and according to Brut 
y Tywysogion and Malmesbury, a year or two earlier. We 
have also intimation in the Brut of another settlement in 
the same parts in the year 11 13; but this was probably 
only one of the many small accessions which, at different 
times before and after, were made to the general body. 

The notices given are so meagre, after the manner of 
the old chroniclers, that we can form but a dim conception 
of the composition and organisation of the new settlers. 
No hint is given as to their leaders, if they had any, of the 
mode of their transit, of the specific spots where they found 
shelter, or of the conflicts with the natives, whereby, with 
the aid of the Anglo-Normans, they must by degrees have 
fought for themselves a home. They were probably a 
horde of humble, industrious people, having no persons of 
exceptional influence to act as guides or leaders, obeying 
the command of the king, as feudal discipline, joined to 
necessity, had taught them to do, and placed in their new 
homes under the military supervision of Norman officials. 
As part of this arrangement, the Castle of Roch at one end 
of their territory, and of Benton, on Milford Haven, at the 
other, were well placed, and here we are told was stationed 
Adam dc Rupe (Adam of the Rock — Roch Castle being 
perched on a solitary rock standing out of the plain) in 
whose family was vested the hereditary office of comes 
/a, "Count of the Slnuv," h'.lding tho government of the 



THE FLEMINGS IN PEMBROKESHIRE. 435 

maritime district from Newgale Sands to the Milford Creek. 
Haverfordwest was the main centre for trade and 
•defence of the Flemish territory. Giraldus, who flourished 
within fifty years of their settlement, and as a native of the 
parts, must have been well acquainted with their character 
and condition, describes them as a people brave and robust ; 
ever most hostile to the Welsh, well-versed in commerce 
and woollen manufacture ; anxious to seek gain by sea or 
land ; a hardy race, equally fitted for the plough or the 
sword. All this is likely enough to be true ; but they 
seem to have lost other qualities, which, if Giraldus is 
correct, made them a very extraordinary race. " These 
people," he says, " from the inspection of the right shoulder 
[bones] of rams, which have been stripped of their flesh, 
and not roasted, but boiled, can discover future events, or 
those which have passed and remained long unknown. 
They know, also, what is transpiring at a distant place by 
a wonderful art and prophetic kind of spirit." The " pro- 
phetic spirit " we fear has been lost, if ever possessed, but 
belief in fortune-telling and occult knowledge, though not 
peculiar to Pembrokeshire, is still exceptionally strong in 
these parts. 

The facts above given are sufficient to account for the 
character of the language of the Pembrokeshire " En- 
glishry." How the Flemings, who used in their original 
home a rather different speech, came to adopt English, is 
made clear only by their previous sojourn and settlement 
in the North and other parts of England. Flow they cast 
their English into a peculiar pattern, and made it a linsey- 
woolsey fabric of divers colours, will be at once understood 
from the mixture of Norman, English, Welsh, and Flemish, 
which constituted their society. For even Welsh would 
in time settle among them ; and that many English had 
been brought hither by the policy of Flenry and his pre- 



436 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

•decessors is not only probable, but almost demonstrated 
by the physical characteristics, the names, and the mixed 
language of the district. 1 

Pembrokeshire English has peculiar words, peculiar 
inflections, idioms, articulations. It has, in fact, no 
"words," but " oords ; " is not pronounced but "pro- 
jiaazunced ; " it often omits the auxiliary, saying, " I 
written," for " I have written ; " the vowel o is frequently 
ill-used, " cold " being caauld, and " told," taauld ; the 
terminal ow in "borrow" is sounded broad a (borrtf) ; to 
"mow," is to " maaoo ; " "going," is " gwain." The 
neuter gender is never recognised by the peasantry, but 
everything is either he or she, and the masculine objective 
is always n; " I told him," is " I taauld'n." "How" is 
universally used for " why." " How did you come "" 
would here have no reference to the manner of comings 
but solely to the reason for coming. For " I am not," 
"he is not," the common expression is "Iarn't," "he 
arn't." A couple does not necessarily mean two of a kind, 
but most usually usurps the meaning of " a few." When a 
person does anything " leisurely," he does it " all by 
lechars ; " one person throwing stones at another is said 
to " pile " him ; " orra one " and " norra one " are used for 
" one " and " not one ;" a cow addicted to pushing is said to 
"pilk;" a large piece of bread is a "culf;" a small loaf 
baked is a " cook," boiled it is a " trolly ; " an article of 
good substance and bulk is said to have a good " sump " 
in it; one of stunted growth is "cranted;" one of weak 
condition of body is " hash ; " one whose intellect is im- 
paired is " dotty ; " to be stern or brave is to be " dern ; " 
an unworthy person is a "pelt;" to be showy is to be 
" filty," a woman over-dressed is " rilty-fine ; " oatmeal 

1 Slc the Author's Annals and Antiquities of Wales. London, 1S72, 

Vol. 11. B7I : .111 i ( 'at I I . . : -yj. 



PEMBROKESHIRE ENGLISH. 437 

gruel is "budram;" when a person talks incoherently it 
is " a rammus ; " to fallow the land is to " vedge " it ; a 
furrow is a " voor ; " any small meadow is " burgage ; " to 
save water from running to waste is to "vang" it; to cover 
a fire so as to keep it in over night is to " stum " it ; to beg 
is to " kedge," " soul/' or " hoggle," and the second means 
begging at "All Souls' time ; " man is used very peculiarly 
under the form "men," "no, my good fellow" is "no, 
men ; " " answer my lad," is " answer men ; " a gap in the 
hedge is a " slop." Traces of Welsh are found in " cowelL" 
a kind of basket, W. cawell; " coppat," is the thatch on a 
mow, or small stack of corn, W. cap, coppa ; to " freeth," 
as in Devon, is to wattle, W. ffridd, a division, quick-set ; 
completely is "rottle," W. trzvyadl, thorough ; to pour is 
to " hild," W. hidlo, to pass through a sieve ; a great eater 
is a " gorral," W. gor, much, extreme, and bol, belly. 

The boundaries of the "Englishry" and "Welshery" in 
this curiously mixed district are about the same to-day as 
they were 650 years ag'o. An old antiquary of the county, 
George Owen, about 260 years ago, writes ; — " The shire is 
well neere divided into two partes between the English 
speeche and the Welshe, for the hundreds of Castle-Martin, 
Rowse, and all Narberth, excepting the parishes of Llan- 
ddewi and Lampeter, and all Dougleddy, excepting the 
parishes of Llanvalteg, Langain, Landyssilio, Lanykeven, 
and Crynow, doe speake the Englishe ; and then the 
hundreds of Kernes, Kilgerran, and Dewis-land speake all 
the Welshe tongue ; so that above seventy-four parishes 
are inhabited by the Englishmen, and sixty-four parishes 
more by the Welshe, and the rest, being about six, speak 
both languages, beginning at Cronwere by Carmarthen- 
shire, and so passeth up to Lanhaden, where both languages 
are spoken, and from thence between Bletherston and 
Lanykeven to New Mote, and soe between Castle-blythe 



438 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and Ambleston, and between Trefgarn'and St. Dogwell's, 
and over the hills betweene Hay's Castle, and then turning 
down Newgall Moore, as the same river leadeth to the sea 
betweene Roche Castle and bridge, the southern part of 
which Lansker speaketh all English, and the norther side 
"Welshe, well neere, as I sayde before, parting the shire in 
two equall halves betweene them." l 

This description would probably apply w T ith equal truth 
to the same district at any point of time between the 12th 
and 17th centuries, and illustrates in a remarkable manner 
the tendencies of language and race to maintain their 
limits, if not invaded by extraordinary forces. It would well 
apply, we believe, to the present state of things in the 
same parts, with one important qualification — viz., that the 
line of demarcation nowhere so distinctly and definitely 
separates the languages as it did when the description 
quoted was written. The reason of this is obvious. With 
the march of education, English slowly diffuses itself 
everywhere through the Welsh parts, not to the exclusion 
of the vernacular, but as a companion speech ; and on the 
other hand, the Welsh, drawn by trade and inclination, 
settle in no inconsiderable number among the once hated 
intruders. The hostility of the two races has nearly dis- 
appeared, leaving behind it only a faint residuum of dis- 
like. Intermarriages take place. Long past is the time 
when the words of the antiquary already quoted were true, 
when the English " held themselves so close as to 
wonder at a Welshman coming among them, the one 
neighbour saying to the other, 'Look, there goeth a 
Welshman ! ' " 

Names of places naturally follow race settlements. Names 
ending in ton, Teutonic for " abode,"' are almost as common 

';-. Register, 



TEUTONIC, NORMAN, DANISH NAMES. 439 

in Roose and Castle-martin as those ending in the synony- 
mous Cymric trc are in Dewsland. But through all time 
and circumstance, expulsion or absorption of race and hot 
furnace of bloody conflict, not a few of the ancient Cymric 
designations have survived almost unharmed and without 
disfigurement even in the most Anglified parts. Pem- 
broke, Teuhy [Din), Narberth, and the various parish Llans 
are conspicuous instances. With almost braver and more 
strenuous affection, the obscure hamlets, farmsteads, rills, 
and ridges cling to their early Cymric names, — Trefran, 
Camros, Talbeny, Coedg'anlas, Pennar, Pwll-y-crochan, as 
well as Carew, Benton, and Begelly. 

Saxon surnames in this country are numerous : such are 
Starbuck, Taplin, Stokes, Sinnett, Barham, Tucker, 
Scowcroft, Watt, Perrott, Nicholas, Scourfield, Mansel, 
Parsell, Reynish, Brigstocke. 

Norman-French names of persons and places are also met 
with in goodly number — continuous memorials of those 
Normans introduced by Henry I. and his predecessors. 
Such names are Roche, Devereux, Bonville, Arnold, 
Raymond. There are places called Filbatch, once owned 
by William de Filbatch ; Hascard, owned by Richard de 
Hascard ; Dale, given to de Vale ; Picton Castle, from which 
was named William de Picton. 

The question of local names brings into singular promi- 
nence the settlement in Pembrokeshire of another nation- 
ality — the Danish. In the 9th and 10th centuries, during 
the long and severe struggle of this people to compass the 
conquest of England, the creeks and islands along the 
coast of Wales, and especially those of Pembrokeshire, 
were much infested with these marauders. Such a harbour 
as Milford Haven was not likely to escape the notice of 
the Vikings. Hence the whole of that neighbourhood, 
both on the margin and in the interior, shows signs of 



44Q 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



their presence. They came hither chiefly in search of 
plunder. Their visits were sometimes hasty and brief, but 
at other times prolonged, and ending in permanent settle- 
ment. Where they impressed their mark so deeply as to 
leave a local name in their own language, it is presumable 
that the place had become their permanent home. The words 
guard, garth, a place enclosed, protected ; zeick, a creek ; 
thorp or drop, a village ; by, an abode ; holm, an island ; 
stack, stakr, a columnar rock, are all Xorse, and are all, 
with several others of kindred origin, to be found in 
Pembrokeshire. 



Fishguard. 


Wick Haven. 


Flatholm. 


Goodwick. 


Oxzc ich. 


Skokholm. 


Hasguard. 


Stackpole Head. 


Sieep^olm. 


Gellyswick. 


Stack Rocks. 


Freystrop. 


Wathzczc/f. 


Penyholt Stack. 


Goultrop. 


hittlewick. 


St. Bride's Stack. " 


Tenby. 


Hehcick. 


Burry Holmes. 


Derby. 


MusselK'z'c&. 


GrsLSS-lwlm. 


Colby. 


Cam ar wig. 







Then there are such obviously Scandinavian names as 
Caldy, Skomer, Skerryback, islands ; Studdolph, Has- 
g"uard, Haroldston, ITubbaston, Gomfreston, Herbrand- 
ston, homesteads ; Strumble Head, Sker-las, c5cc. 

As to personal names, Danish traces are discoverable in 
Colby, Skyrme, Buckley, Lort. 

The same result would be obtained by a minute exami- 
nation oi personal names, and the physical characteristics, such 
as the complexion, hair-colour, and stature of the people; 
all would tend to show that the County of Pembroke 
has been largely visited by the North Sea \ ikings, and 
that theyhave left here not only fragments o:" their language, 
but also a slight tinge of their blood. One other thing is 
evident, here as elsewhere in early British, and more recent 



NAMES AND PHYSICAL CHARACTER. 44 1 

Saxon history, viz., that the lines of demarcation between 
Briton and Saxon have been gradually wearing out (as is 
always and unavoidably the case, when two types come in 
contact), and that this process is brought to pass, to out- 
ward appearance, by the merging of the Celt in the Teuton 
rather than the reverse. 

The Pembrokeshire people exhibit certain physical 
aspects of a marked character which cannot well be traced 
to a Norman or Danish origin ; and, on the other hand, 
are scarcely to be considered Celtic. The short and stout 
build, the round and comely physiognomy, dark and curly 
hair, and dark eyes, giving a type of countenance almost 
Jewish, so often to be met here, powerfully suggest a foreign 
origin. How much of this is due to the cause suggested 
by Tacitus [Agric. xi.) in his description of the Silures 
(whose near neighbourhood may have led to admixture 
with the more westerly Britons), when he ascribes their 
dark complexion and curled locks to an Iberian source, 
and how much to the Flemish intrusion, it is, of course, 
impossible to tell ; but that a mixture of races has occurred 
in these parts is as clear from the physical character of the 
population as from their speech and local names. 



44^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

Evidence of the influence of the Ancient British 
Race upon the Anglo-Saxons, supplied by 
the development of early english law. 

Common sense and experience unite in telling us that 
if a conquering nation receive in whole or in part the laws 
of the conquered, the circumstance argues : — 

First : The probable intellectual superiority, or superior 
civilization, of the subjugated race ; and 

Secondly : That the conquest was not one of extermina- 
tion, but of incorporation where the triumph was complete, 
of subjection to tribute where incomplete. 

The phenomena of the Norman Conquest confirm this 
hypothesis ; but more especially in its second branch ; for 
it scarcely can be said that the Anglo-Saxons were, intel- 
lectually, in advance of the Normans. But William con- 
quered England, not with the view of expelling the in- 
habitants, but with the view of making them his subjects ; 
and he ultimately found it desirable, nay indispensable, in 
order to make such a nation obedient to his rule, to respect 
its laws and institutions. He swore, after much manoeuvr- 
ing to avoid it, to " rule according to law," — not the 
law of Normandy, not the more congenial one of his own 
overbearing will, but the law of Jul ward — the law of the 
English nation — that law which in its great formative 
elements had, long before William's era, swayed the British 
mind, and in substance continues to rule it still. 



EVIDENCE OF ENGLISH LAW. 443 

Now what is demonstrably true in the case of Normans 
and Anglo-Saxons, is constructively true, to say the least, 
in the case of Anglo-Saxons and Britons. If the Nor- 
mans, having prosecuted a Avar of conquest and not of 
extermination, chose to appropriate the laws of the 
country, the probability is that the Angles and Saxons, if 
their object was to make a war of conquest and not of 
extermination, would in like manner respect the chief 
articles of public law with which the conquered were 
familiar. This is hypothesis ; we want facts. 

The question, therefore, is, did the Anglo-Saxons to any 
extent adopt the Ancient British laws ? If they did, we 
hold it next to certain that they so did because of the 
reason involved in our hypothesis, and which has been 
seen to govern in the case of the Norman Conquest, viz., 
that the people whose laws they properly were, continued 
in great part to be subjects under rule. 

Let us for a moment advert to the other reason which 
might be expected to obtain in the case of the Ancient 
Britons more than in that of the Anglo-Saxons, viz., their 
undoubtedly superior intellectual culture, and nearer 
approximation to a state of civilization. 

A less civilized people is ever subject to the spell which 
the institutions of the more civilized are fitted to cast 
around them. We all know that the Britons of this island, 
after nearly five centuries of Roman government and cul- 
ture, were a civilized people, and that the Angles, Jutes, 
and Saxons were not. Britain, at the arrival of these 
strong-armed, earnest-minded, needy aggressors, was such 
as the pride, favour, taste, and resources of Rome could 
have made her. She was deserted (under stern decree of 
necessity) as a jewel is relinquished — as is a long-inhabited, 
sumptuously furnished mansion. The superb architecture, 
the refinement of manners, the well-adjusted machinery of 



444 TH E PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

public law which Britain presented, could not be witnessed 
by the rough but keen-eyed Teutons without winning - for 
the people of whose minds they were the exponents — though 
they were a fallen people — a good measure of respect and 
veneration. Who does not remember the striking analogy 
of the conquest of Greece by the old Romans ? If that 
martial people in their earlier, less corrupted days, con- 
quered Greece, the art, splendour, wisdom of Greece also 
conquered them. Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, like Xormans 
and Romans, were men — neither better nor worse than 
men ; but it were to argue on the assumption that they 
were something in stupidity and blindness which men 
never yet have been, if it were contended that their admira- 
tion was not excited by the material magnificence, the 
intellectual endowment, and social culture which they 
encountered for the first time in this island. 

"We must now recur to our question : — Did the Anglo- 
Saxons to any extent adopt the Ancient British Laws ? 
We are not writing for the information of lawyers : they 
all know that the question can only be answered in the 
affirmative. In truth, we are not writing for the purpose 
of informing any intelligent person on this subject ; but 
simply of recording an almost universally admitted truth. 
The Anglo-Saxons certainly did, to some extent, embody 
in their code, when they became ripe to construct one, 
elements belonging distinctly to the Ancient British juris- 
prudence. The quantum was perhaps small, but it was 
there. 

The chief articles of public law, in those times, referred 
to the relations of king and people, the tenure of land, the 
class relations of the people among themselves, and the 
administrative divisions and tribunals of the countrv, &c. 
If in these, or some of these, we find exact correspondence 
and agreement in the Ancient British and Anglo-Saxon 



EVIDENCE OF ENGLISH LAW. 445 

laws, our conclusion must be that the latter borrowed from 
the former— unless indeed it can be shown that both 
equally borrowed from a common source, as ex gr. the 
Theodosian Code. 

Now on this point, Sir F. Palgrave — no mean authority 
— has written thus : — " Opposed as the native and the 
stranger were to each other, the main lines and land- 
marks of their jurisprudence were identical. They agreed 
in their usages respecting crimes and punishments ; they 
agreed in allowing the homicide to redeem his guilt by 
making compensation to the relatives of the slain ; they 
agreed in the use of trial by ordeal and by compurgation ; 
and these being the chief features of the law, and of its 
administration, the question whether such analogous cus- 
toms be of British, or of Saxon origin is little more than a 
mere verbal dispute," &C. 1 

Lest it should be thought that language to the same 
effect as the following, if it came from the present writer, 
would be that of a special-pleader for a foregone conclusion, 
we shall again quote Sir F. Palgrave in the judgment he 
pronounces upon the quality of the Ancient British legisla- 
tion. The readers of the " School Histories of England," 
will of course decline to understand such language. The 
Britons are known to have been "barbarians," and "there- 
fore," such sentiments must be absurd, &c. ! 

" The historical order prevailing in this code," 2 says 

1 Rise and Progress of Englisli Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 38. 

2 The Code of Howel the Good (ffywel Dda), a.d. 906—948. This 
Code was a revision of the Laws of Dyfnwal Moelmud, which had long 
existed among the Britons, and of the tenor of which King Alfred had 
doubtless been carefully informed by his Welsh instructor, Asser. The 
Code of Hywel gives its own history thus : — " Howel the Good, son of 
Cadell, Prince of Cymru, summoned to him six men from every cantrev 
[hundred] in all Cymru. . . . And they examined the laws : such of 
them as might be too severe in punishment to mitigate, and such as 



446 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Palgrave, " shows that it was framed with considerable 
care, and the customs it comprehends bear the impress of 
great antiquity. . . . The character of the British 
legislation is enhanced by comparison with the laws which 
were put in practice amongst the other nations of the 
Middle Ages. The indignant pride of the Britons, who 
despised their implacable enemies, the Anglo-Saxons, as 
a race of rude barbarians, whose touch was impurity, will 
not be considered as any decisive test of superior civiliza- 
tion. But the Triads, and the laws of Hocl Dda, excel the 
Anglo-Saxon and other Teutonic customals in the same 
manner that the elegies of Llywarch Hen, and the odes of 
Taliesin, soar above the ballads of Edda. Law had become 
a science amongst the Britons; and its volumes exhibit the 
jurisprudence of a rude nation shaped and modelled by 
thinking men, and which had derived both stability and 
equity from the labours of its expounders." 1 

Great mystery hangs over the derivation of the greater 
part of the common law of England. We have no means 
of knowing how much of the customs, so-called, was in- 
cluded in the Dom-boc of King Alfred, who collected and 
digested the laws of the Heptarchy — for that precious book 
is lost. But we have laws of Edward the Confessor, of 
Alfred, of Athelstan, of Ethelbert, and of Ina. 2 The 
three celebrated codes in operation before Edward's 
time — the Mcrccnlagc, the West Saexenlage, and the Datie- 
lagc, doubtless contained a large portion of what is now 



might be too lenient to render more rigorous. Some of the laws they 
suffered to remain unaltered ; others thty willed to amend ; others they 
abrogated entirely; and they enacted some new laws." Ancient Laws 
and Institutions of Wales. Public Records Ed. B. iii. c. i. 

1 Rise and 1'rogrcss of English Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 37. 

s See Dr. Reinhold Schmid's Die Uesetze der Angelsachsetl ; and Ancient 
Laws and Institutes of England. Public Records Ed., by Thorpe, 1S40. 



EVIDENCE OF ENGLISH LAW. 447 

called the " un-written " law of England, and were pro- 
bably brought together in a somewhat classified form in 
the Confessor's Code, as intimated by Roger de Hoveden. 1 
Many of the rules, and very much of the terminology of 
our jurisprudence, are derived from the Normans. Our 
"common" law, however — termed "common" probably 
from its being " common to all the realm 2 " — has no 
special paternity. It is a collection brought in from all 
quarters — extracted from the wisdom, consecrated by the 
usage, and corrected by the experience of all ages, and of 
all the nations now blended in one in the people of Eng- 
land. It may, therefore, contain an indefinite amount 
originally derived from the Ancient Britons ; and much of 
that amount may have been previously derived by the 
Britons from the Theodosian Code. 

It is universally admitted that the law of Gavel-kind, in 
Kent, and other parts — which ordains, among other things, 
that the father's inheritance, including his lands, shall be 
divided among all his sons equally — is borrowed from the 
Ancient British law. This law was in force all over Wales 
till the time of Henry VIII. Its designation is purely 
Welsh ; gavel meaning in that language, a " hold," a 
"grasp," "tenure" ; kind being probably the Anglo-Saxon 
cind, " kindred," " relation," signifying a law which gave 
to a man's family, or children, a hold or claim upon his 
property. This is a better derivation than gafael-ccncdl, 
which is rather uncouth and very improbable, ccnedl mean- 
ing "tribe " rather than children or family. 

, The Ancient British law of vassalage was in many points 
an exact pattern of the Anglo-Saxon. The villein among 
the Ancient Britons, however, was not so degraded a being 

1 Annals, vol. ii. On Henry. II. 
2 Stephen's Blackslonc, vol. i. p. 45, 5th Ed. 



44 8 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

as the theowe, but corresponded rather with the ceorl (vil- 
lanus) among the Saxons. He was a " bondman," but he 
was still a man, not a mere thing, or animal. He held his 
gavel by praedial service rendered to the king, just as the 
Saxon ceorl held his " gafol-land." Work was to be done 
on the king's manor ; a thirlage l rendered to the mill. 
The king's corn was to be reaped by the British vassal, 
and his hay to be mown : his hawks were to be kept, and 
his hounds fed. 2 The rent paid in " kind," which was 
denominated the " farm " 3 among the Anglo-Saxons, is 
regulated in the same way, and described in nearly the 
same words in the laws of Hywel Dda, and in the Code of 
Ina. 4 

It has been already remarked that among the Anglo- 
Saxons the ceorl could rise to the rank of a six-haend-maii, 
and be considered a person of gentle blood, if property to 
the amount of five hides of land had continued in his 
family for three generations ; and it has also been shown 
that the same privilege was granted to the IVcalas, or 
Ancient Britons, settled among the Anglo-Saxons. Xow 
there was a law precisely to this effect among the Britons 
themselves. The laws of Hywel Dda enact that the 
descendants of a bondman shall become free in the fourth 
generation, if hy grant from the king, he and the inter- 
vening descendants shall have held five acres of land 5 — 

1 A. -Saxon, thrael, a bond-servant; hence English "thrall," and 
" thraldom." 

- Some faint reflection of this is to be witnessed to this day, where 
the small farmer has to keep the squire's hound or spaniel. 

3 A. -Saxon feormian, to supply provisions, to entertain. 

' See YVootton's Leges Wallice, pp. 166 — 16S, 175; Laws of Ina, Ixxv. 
A more accurate and accessible work than YVotton's is the edition of 
the Welsh Laws of Hywel, issued by the Record Commissioners — 
Ancient Laws and Institutions 0/ Wales. 

b YVotton's Lt\qcs Wallia, p. 154. 



EVIDENCE OF ENGLISH LAW. 449 

the acre of the Britons being about the same measurement 
as the Saxon "hide." This fact, says Sir F. Palgrave, 
"evinces a further conformity between the British and 
English laws." 1 

On the whole, it appears highly probable that the Saxon 
laws which Alfred found scattered among the three 
divisions of the country, the Mercen-lage, the West-Saexen- 
lage, and the Dane-lage, were largely derived from the 
codes existing iamong the Britons, and which themselves 
had been partly inherited from the Romans. Of the laws 
of Mercia this is especially probable, since a vast propor- 
tion of that recently-erected kingdom's subjects were 
Britons. Nor is there much reason to adopt a different 
opinion with respect to the laws of Wessex. The revisal 
of Alfred and the revisal of Hywel Dda> therefore, might be 
concerned with the very same ancient materials ; and it is 
not improbable that Hywel, who came last, might profit 
from the work of Alfred, as Alfred, through his Welsh 
counsellor Asser, w r as likely to have profited from the 
ancient laws of Wales beyond the border. 

One thing is certain : the Britons, who had enjoyed such 
prolonged intimacy with the Roman mind and institutions, 
had an immense advantage, as compared with the Angles 
and Saxons, in the performance of any such task as the 
compilation of a code of laws. The Britons were at the 
outset in possession of this advantage. The Anglo- 
Saxons, at the outset, were a rude and illiterate people. 
For many ages their only work was fighting. Until they 
were Christianized they had but a poor pretence to 
civilization. As they had absorbed large numbers — even 
whole States — of the Britons into their dominions, it was 
but natural that they should avail themselves of the legal 

1 Rise and Progress of English Commonwealth, pp. 30, 31. 

GG 



450 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

customs already prevailing among that people, and which 
were superior to anything which they could be supposed 
to have transported with them from the wild regions of the 
Baltic and the Elbe. 

Appropriation has always been a law of action with the 
Anglo-Saxon race : appropriation of the best, come whence 
it may. This has been the rule followed with respect to 
territory, language, population, laws. Nothing comes ill 
that answers a good purpose ; nothing is rejected for its 
foreign origin, its novelty, its apparent want of artistic 
harmony with things already appropriated. Two questions 
alone are asked : Will the thing be useful r and : Is it 
obtainable ? The next step is action and acquisition. Out 
of many sources of greatness, which the English nation 
may claim, this unfettered spirit of trading for material and 
institutional gain is one of the chief. 

The corroboratory evidence furnished by these few 
particulars touching English law may be very small ; but, 
so long as it adds something to the balance of probability, 
we care not to claim for it any more important function. 



45i 



CHAPTER V. 

The Evidence supplied by the Physical, Mental, 
and Moral Qualities of the English. 

We have hitherto been ranging distant fields of inquiry ; 
— now, we return home, and sit down by the hearth. It is 
to be hoped that the handfuls of produce we have gathered 
from the far-distant Celtic and Teutonic times and regions, 
and the larger results of our gleaning in the broad and 
fertile fields of British History and Celtic Philology, have 
been found to furnish a somewhat substantial treasury of 
evidence in favour of the position we have adopted — viz., 
that a large proportion of the blood of England is truly 
Celtic blood. Our next contribution of evidence is to be 
drawn from the personal qualities of the living English- 
man himself. We must try to understand this complex 
entity, the authentic Englishman ; taking him first as a 
whole, in his synthetic unity, and then, dissolving the 
bonds of cohesion, reducing him to his original elementary 
race constituents. 

What, then, is the "Englishman," and whence did he 
proceed ? To define him, draw aline around him, marking 
off all projecting angles, all furtively receding niches, and 
all points, at which he is alone occupant, and where neither 
Cymro, Saxon, nor Norman, in any of his essential traits, 
has the least chance of standing-room, is, indeed, a task 
impossible to perform. But, as in a rainbow we can tell 

G 2 



452 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

where the red and where the yellow is, though we fail to 
put our mathematical finger on the point where it ceases 
to be, so we may be able approximately to define and 
distinguish the Englishman. But, to define the English- 
man is to define the English nation, and a definition of the 
English nation will bring it into comparison with the 
ancient Teuton and Celt, as well as with the modern 
Teuton and Celt, and empower us to judge whether it most 
resembles the one or the other, or partly resembles both. 

Our present chapter embraces two distinct branches of 
science — one referring to characteristics belonging to 
physical organization, the other to mental characteristics, 
and we shall briefly survey them in this order. 



SECTION I. 

Physical Characteristics of the English People. 

Amongst the English are to be found specimens of every 
description of physiognomy, complexion, temperament, 
and cranial formation discoverable among all the European 
and Asiatic varieties of the race. The ethnological student, 
walking along one of the great thoroughfares of London 
— that " Babel" which forms, not the point of dispersion, 
but the point of junction of all incongruities— with a slight 
effort at abstraction, forgetting for the moment that all the 
busy myriads that hurry to and fro are veritable English 
people, with, of course, not a few distinctly marked visitors 
from foreign lands— might fancy that he had unconsciously 
entered some great "exhibition," where every typical human 
physique, profile, cranium, complexion under the sun, had 
been brought together for the inspection cf the curious. 1 

1 London, as Dr. Donaldson has remarked [Cambr. Est. p. 72), is a 
good speculum in which to view the whole people of England, for its 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. 453 

Complexions dark and light — faces round, oval, triangular 
— profiles perpendicular, angular, slanting — eyes black, 
blue, grey, brown, oblique as Chinese, large and dazzling 
as Iberian — hair white as flax, black as jet, red as fire, 
brown as copper, strong as bristles, fine as silk, lank, 
straight, curly ; the high Caucasian brow, the low, retiring, 
animal pate, hardly deserving the name of forehead ; the 
broad, thick, pugnacious head and neck ; the projecting 
chin and heavy jaws ; lips as large as negroes', small and 
delicate as an Italian Madonna's ; noses as straight as 
Apollo's — as crooked as a son of Abraham's. 

But all this disjointed heterogeneous crowd — so infallibly 
suggesting the idea of Babel — if it but speak, articulates 
only one language, and in its movements displays the 
one leading characteristic of Englishmen, take them in 
London, Calcutta, or elsewhere — earnest pursuit of some 
gainful, probably honourable calling, and unflagging re- 
solution to get on and prosper. 

If our abstracted observer visit Liverpool, Manchester, 
Birmingham, Bristol, the result will be nearly the same. 
Not precisely the same ; for in the North, and in the West, 
a larger proportion will be visible of forms distinctly and 
prominently Celtic. In the North, too, there will be 
frequent appearances of the light Scandinavian complexion 
— permanent witnesses of the settlement of the Danes in 
Northumbria and Caledonia. But with all this, there will 



population is drawn from all parts of the island. Our Population Ab- 
stracts (Census, 1861), prove that nearly one-half the inhabitants of the 
two metropolitan counties, Middlesex and Surrey, are born beyond the 
limits of those counties, the numbers being — Middlesex, born in the 
county, 1,307,648, born elsewhere, 898,837; Surrey, born in the county, 
434,317, born elsewhere, 396,776 ; but since the time when these figures 
were taken the proportion of extraneous births has largely increased. 
For London proper, the proportion of home-births is greater, being in 
1861 as follows: born in London, 1,741,177 ; born elsewhere, 1,062,812. 



454 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

be infinite variety everywhere. Dark, light, and many in- 
termediate complexions — every conceivable form of limb, 
profile, and skull. 

This strange and perplexing variety suggests one of the 
chief sources of the strength, genius, and glory of England. 
To use a somewhat strong figure, the blended rays have 
flashed forth in light. The daring, the perseverance, 
patient application, ingenuity, force of muscle, clearness 
and grasp of intellect, wealth of fancy, flight of imagination, 
humour, wit, drollery, and warm sympathetic emotion and 
benevolence, which have made the English nation the 
wonder and the envy of the world, come from that unex- 
ampled blending of races which is reflected in that motley 
crowd. But not these alone, alas ! appear. There are also 
signs not a few of all that is feeble, base, wicked, and 
miserable ! 

If our observer proceed to a centre of population less 
affected by extraneous influences, and, therefore, ap- 
proximating more nearly to the staminal type of the 
British people proper — say of the time of Alfred — when the 
Britons and the Anglo-Saxons had become pretty well 
kneaded into a consistent mass — ex. gr., if he go to 
Winchester, Oxford, Reading, or Leicester, he will still, 
indeed, find variety, but not the same crowding abundance 
of it. He will see the Celtic and Teutonic races in their 
chief features, very plainly depicted ; but will find a nearer 
approach to unity and homogeneity than he could hope for 
in the Strand or Cheapside. 

Our supposed ethnological student will perhaps wish a 
subject of greater simplicity — a sharper division of the 
Celtic from the Teutonic features ; in other words, he will 
be ready to witness the process of analysing the complex 
Englishman, and inspecting microscopically the element- 
ary parts of him. lie will be inclined to go to "Wales to 



COMPLEXION. 455 

see some portions, and to the most sequestered parts of 
Norfolk, Lincoln, or perhaps Denmark, to see the others. 
If he will permit a caution from those who have been 
to those same parts, on the same errand before him, 
he may be informed that the step would be compara- 
tively useless and disappointing — that, in fact, the pure 
breed of Celt is now rarely to be found, even in Wales, 
Cornwall, or the Highlands, and the pure Teuton never in 
the British islands, or anywhere else. He must be content 
to listen to descriptions of ancient writers, and to the 
results of modern scientific research. These, if carefully 
attended to, will tell him a good deal more respecting the 
origin and constituent parts of the present English people 
than he can learn from any number of School or other 
Histories of England, even though of the approved and 
established authority of Hume or Goldsmith. 

What, then, according to early writers, were the dis- 
tinguishing physical characteristics of the Celts and 
Teutons of past ages, and what are the conclusions of 
science respecting them now ? 

Space will admit of the treatment of only two leading 
and testing characteristics — complexion and the form cf the 
cranium. 

i. Complexion, or Hair Colour. 

What is the testimony of ancient writers respecting the 
complexion of the Gauls and Ancient Britons, or Cells, on 
the one hand, and Old Germans, or Taitons, on the other ? 
The answer to this will help us in the analytic part of our 
inquiry. We shall afterwards arrive at the synthesis in 
the modern Englishman, and shall be able to judge how 
far he, in his complex personality, represents one or other, 
or both of these. The popular belief is, as already often 
intimated, that the Englishman is a descendant direct of 



456 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the Saxons and Angles of Schleswig and Holstein — a 
belief as groundless and fallacious as ever easy credulity- 
entertained, and capable of being in some measure cor- 
rected by the discussion of our present subject. 

Let us premise that it is more than probable that the 
Greeks and Romans, 1 to whose writers we are indebted 
for certain minute descriptions of the personal character- 
istics of the ancient Teutons and Celts, were themselves of 
a prevailingly dark complexion. This was especially the 
case with the Romans. From Homer we gather that 
golden locks were held in high esteem, at least by the poet 
himself, but whether they prevailed among Argives or 
Trojans is not hence deducible. The probability is that 
they were exceptional. 2 Hence, according to the usual 
rule of setting a high value on that which is rare, their 
writers took especial notice of the light or " yellow" hair 

1 Latham's Yar. of Mankind, p. 542. 

2 Mr. Gladstone, Studies on Homer, v. 1, p. 552, says : " Now the result 
of all that we have drawn from Homer thus far would be to connect 
the Celts with the Pelasgi, with Media, and with the low Iranian coun- 
tries ; the ' Germans ' with the Helli and with Persia. Observe, then, 
how the differences noted by Strabo between Celts and Germans corre- 
spond with the Homeric differences between Helli and Pelasgi. And, 
lastly, as to the auburn hair, which was with Homer in such esteem, 
Menelaus is $avdbs (passim); so is Meleager (II. ii. 642); so is Rhada- 
manthus (Od. iv. 564) ; Agamede (II. xi. 739) ; Ulysses (Od. xiii. 399, 
431) ; lastly, Achilles (II. i. 197). But never once, I think, does Homer 
bestow this epithet upon a Pclasgian name. None of the Trojan 
family, so renowned for beauty, are $avOh ; none of the chiefs, not even 
Euphorbus, of whose flowing hair the poet has given us so beautiful, 
and even so impassioned, a description (II. xvii. 51). Nothing Pelas- 
gian, but Ceres (II. v. 500), the Ka\\i.ir\6Ka/j.os , is admitted to the honour 
of the epithet. It could hardly be denied to the goddess of the ruddy 
harvest, 

' Excutit ct flavas aurea terra comas.' — Propertius. 

Now Tacitus, describing the Germani, gives them ' truces et Coerulei 
oculi, rutilac comae, magna corpora.' Germ, iv." 



THE OLD GERMAN COMPLEXION. 457 

of the Germans, and of the less light hair of the Gauls and 
Britons, as a feature of comeliness. The authors of the 
Crania Brztannzca 1 say rightly : " The prevailing colour of 
hair among the Romans was that which is called black, 
yet it was not universally dark even, for blond or fair 
hair sometimes occurred, and perhaps, from being rare, 
was esteemed beautiful." To the same effect is the 
language of Dr. Arnold. 2 " The Greek and Roman writers 
invariably describe the Gauls as a tall and light-haired 
race, in comparison with their own countrymen ; but it has 
been maintained that there must be some confusion in 
these descriptions between the Gauls and the Germans, 
inasmuch as the Keltic nations now existing are all dark- 
haired. Compared with the Italians, it would be certainly 
true that the Keltic nations were, generally speaking, 
light-haired and tall." Dr. Latham's opinion on the 
Roman complexion, guardedly expressed, is to the same 
effect. " At the same time the description of Tacitus 3 is 
no over-statement, since we must not only remember that 
he wrote as an Italian, accustomed to dark-skins and black 
hair," &cc. So great, indeed, was their admiration of the 
German red tints, that the ladies of Rome, in their enthu- 
siasm, hesitated not to have recourse to a colouring mixture 
in order to give their slighted raven locks the hues of 
aristocratic German yellow ! The fever, swelling to the 
height of the silliest fashion, had gone all abroad, even in 
the ranks of professing Christian ladies, as far as Africa, 
and in that quarter called forth the following severe 
castigation from the faithful outspoken Tertullian : — I 
observe certain ladies who change the colour of their hair 
with the crocus (saffron). They are ashamed of their own 
nation, because they were not born Germans or Gauls ; 

1 Davis and Thurnam's Cyan. Dyit. p. 24. 
■ Hist, of Rome, i. 530, 531. * Geymattia of Tacitus, p. 31. 



45 8 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

and thus change their country by their (coloured) hair ! " l 
We need not render the remainder of the invective ; 
the language used is strong. Possibly the ladies of 
England, who are said to have a weakness now-a-days in 
favour of yellow hair, might hear of it in church in the 
nervous language of the African presbyter ! 

Owing to this widely prevalent custom of colouring 
the hair in ancient times, it must be confessed that the 
natural colour of a people cannot always be gathered with 
certainty from the descriptions of historians. Nor have we 
a more reliable guide in the works of the old painters. 
These gave their figures, of whatever age or nation, the 
complexion which was fashionable in their own day. There 
can be little doubt but that the Italians and Jews have 
always been, as they now are, prevailingly dark. The 
painter, however, in his work, takes the liberty to follow 
his own or his age's ideal of beauty. Hence, ex. gr. the 
celebrated Italian Botticelli (a.d. 1473 — 15 15] in his famous 
works. The Feast in the Forest, Summer, Spring, The Mar- 
riage Festival; and Raphael, in his Holy Family, give the 
hair of all the figures as truly xanthous? 

Still, while the historian often wrote according to the 
artificial appearance, and the artist painted as his own 
imagination, or the fashion in vogue, dictated, the historical 
testimony left us is so abundant, varied, and apparently 
prosaic and literal, that we cannot hesitate, upon the 
whole, in receiving it as true to facts. 

Our first authority is Tacitus. When Tacitus speaks of 

1 " Video quasdam et capillum croco vertere. Pudet eas etiam 
nationis su;o, quod non Germana: aut Gallse procreate sint : ita patriam 
capillo transferunt. Male ac pessin-.e sibi auspicantur flammeo capite, 
et decorum putant quod inquinant. Quis decor cum injuria ? Quae 
cum inmunditiis pulchritudo ? Crocum capiti suo mulier Christiana 
ingeret ut in aram ? " &c. Dc Cultu, ii. 6. 

2 See the paintings in the South Kensington Museum. 



THE OLD GERMAN COMPLEXION. 459 

" Germans," let us bear in mind that he speaks of a people 
whose country comprehended all that wide region stretch- 
ing from Bohemia to the Baltic northwards, and from 
Poland, westwards, to the Cimbric Chersonese, the cradle, 
therefore, of the Teutonic tribes who conquered Britain, 
and whose children the modern English are popularly 
supposed to be. 

Now Tacitus tells us distinctly that the Germans were a 
red or reddish haired people ; and he goes so far as to say 
that they all bore this character — a comprehensiveness of 
statement which we may, at least, understand as signifying 
that the general run of Germans were red haired. His 
words are : " Unde habitus quoque corporum, quanquam 
in tanto hominum numero, idem omnibus, truces et ccerulei 
oculi, rutilce comce, magna corpora et tantum ad impetum 
valida." l " Hence (because they bore a distinct national 
character), although so numerous, they have the same 
personal appearance, and they have all fierce blue eyes, 
red (or yellow) hair, and large frames powerful for attack." 

Juvenal was a poet, but poetic allusion is often the best 
history. Alluding to the same peculiarity of the German 
complexion, he says : — 

"Caerula quis stupuit Germani lumina, flavam 
Ccesaricm," &c. ? 2 

Calpurnius Flaccus calls the Germans a people " red in 
their personal appearance " : rutilcz sunt Germanae vultus, 
&c. 3 This, it is true, may be said to mean only ruddy, 
healthy, of fresh colour ; but, interpreted by the descrip- 
tions of other authors, it must be understood to mean more. 
And he is evidently referring to natural complexion, not to 
an artificially-produced appearance through painting ; for, 
he has just said that a peculiar aspect belongs by nature 

1 Germania, iv. Ed. Bekkeri, 1831. 2 Saiir. xiii. v. 1C2. 

3 Dcdamut. ii. Ed. Gronovii. 



460 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

to every people (sua cuique genti etiam facies manet) ; and 
adds, that all are not tinged of like colour, but diversely, 
each according to its own peculiarities ; r Non eodem 
omnes colore tinguntur. Diversa sunt mortalium genera ; 
nemo tamen est suo generi dissimilis}. 

Strabo informs us that the Germans chiefly differed from 
the Celts (KeA.Tcu, as he called the Gauls), by their greater 
stature and more xanthous hair. But of this again. 

There can be no question, therefore, that in the opinion 
of both Greek and Roman writers, both poets and his- 
torians, the Germans of antiquity were afair-complexioned, 
blue-eyed, red, reddish, or yellow haired people. Now Baron 
Bunsen had a little difficulty about this matter ; and it so 
happens that his very difficulty turns eventually to the 
advantage of our argument. He informed Dr. Prichard 
that he had " often looked in vain among his Prussian 
countrymen for the auburn or golden locks, and the light 
cerulean eyes of the old Germans, and never verified the 
picture given by the ancients of his countrymen until he 
visited Scandinavia ; there he found himself surrounded by 
the Germans of Tacitus." 1 Bunsen, probably enough, saw 
a smaller proportion of Prussians xanthous than corres- 
ponded with the strong description of Tacitus ; but most 
observers in England know that the Germans who settle 
in this country are more frequently marked by fair, reddish, 
or dun-coloured hair, than are the English, and those of 
us who have spent any time in Germany, have seen that 
the same approximately xanthous complexion is there 
prevalent which is represented by the German residents of 
London or Manchester. The hair colour of the people 
alone tells you that you arc out of England. The same 
dry, unclear complexion of skin — the same dun, third- 
part black, third-part red, third-part yellow, hair, is seen 

1 Prichard's Natural Hist, of Man, p. 197. Ed. 1S43. Also Thys. 
Hist, of Mankind, iii. 19.:. 



THE OLD GERMAN COMPLEXION. 46 1 

everywhere. The colour in the majority of instances is so 
peculiar that while you cannot describe it, you unfailingly 
recognise and classify it as " German : " it is a dingy tan 
produced nowhere but under the German sky — a kind of 
compromise or transition colour, which has departed from 
the regular red of Tacitus's German, and is now apparently 
on its way towards a higher "development" under the 
influence of an old Celtic and Sclavonic admixture. 

But the fact that Bunsen found in the North of Europe, 
in Scandinavia, the country of the Danes and Normans 
(from whom AVilliam Rufus came), and the seat of the early 
Angles (for Denmark was in blood and genius truly Scan- 
dinavian; — the very characteristics described by Tacitus, 
is an interesting one. In those northern parts the early 
race has escaped the effects of admixture, has preserved its 
pristine features with greater completeness than was 
possible to the dwellers in less Northern and central 
Germany. The testimony of the acute and philosophic 
Bunsen is thus a strong support to that of Tacitus and 
other ancient historians, to the effect that the Ancient 
Germans were a red or reddish haired people. 

But now comes the question : do the English people who 
are said to have descended from those Ancient Germans, 
display these same characteristics of race ? Are they 
prevailingly blue-eyed and red, or yellow-haired? Nothing 
of the sort. We have only to open our eyes to see the 
contrary. Some ladies by their skilful toilet-dyeing, 
testify to the contrary ! To become red or xanthous now- 
a-days requires some outlay of money — much of time and 
ingenuity. So rare is the genuine red, that it attracts 
attention, in a crowd, on the street. Dr. Prichard, who 
emphatically held that the modern English are darker 
than their supposed German ancestors, although he had 
his own way of accounting for the fact, was doubtless 
nearly right when he said that eight out of every ten of 



462 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



the inhabitants of England are dark-complexioned. 1 Either, 
therefore, the Ancient Germans are not correctly described 
by history, or the English are not descendants of the Ancient 
Germans. But, if history of the kind we have quoted is to be 
rejected, a new historic criticism and basis for a knowledge 
of the old world must be invented ; the utter uselessness of 
all existing records of the past must be demonstrated ; and 
history must be made to mean nothing more than the 
private reminiscences of each individual, as furnishing evi- 
dence to himself alone, of things which he himself has seen. 
It is unquestionably our fortune, as English, to be so far 
from fair-haired, that we are at the nearest possible 
approach to what Prichard denominates the Melanic type 
of complexion. This has been made plain by experiment. 
In twenty large assemblages of English persons of both 
sexes, and all ages — and a person in childhood is known 
to be more fair-haired than he proves to be when adult — 
where 10,000 complexions have been marked for the 
purposes of this work, not one-fourth of the number were 
either red, reddish, or yellow-haired. The following tables 
contain an approximate exhibition of the general result : 2 
In London. 



TOTAL OBSERVED. 


BLACK AND BROWN. 


LIGHT AUBURN. 


FAIR. 


RED. 


6,000 


4-500 


1,000 


350 


150 


North of England. 


TOTAL. 


BLACK AND DARK. 


LIGHT AUBURN. 


FAIR. 


RED. 


5,000 


3,550 


930 


360 


160 



\ i Phys. Hist, of Mankind, iii. 19. 

: The observations made for these tables were suggested by 
Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, iii. 119, &c. 



THE ENGLISH A DARK-HAIRED RACE. 463 

This result is given as an approximation to actual fact. 
But the process is at the command of any one, and there 
is no need to depend on others' testimony. It is believed, 
however, that the effect of observation will in all cases 
generally harmonize with the above figures, with the 
allowance of a small margin of diversity for different parts 
of the kingdom, and the different conceptions observers 
may entertain of what is meant by red, fair, auburn, dark 
brown. Our tables show that the red and light colours 
prevail in the North of England, where the influence of the 
Scandinavian settlements in Caledonia and Northumbria 
have been felt, more than in London. It is highly pro- 
bable that observations in the West of England, or in 
Wales, would give a larger proportion of black and 
" brown " than in London, the Celtic stock being in those 
parts less affected by admixture with the light Saxon. 

Now, as race is proved by science and history to be, not 
absolutely unchangeable, but, on the whole, if kept free 
from admixture, permanent in its chief characteristics, it is 
incumbent on those who believe in the Anglo-Saxon 
derivation of the English people to explain, and account 
for this strange and wide departure in complexion from 
the original type. How have w T e English become a 
generally dark-haired race ? Even granting that from 
difference of habit, town life, nature of employment, and 
food, some slight variation may have been caused in the 
complexion, as Dr. Prichard believes ; l and that thus 
the Germans and the English alike have grown darker, 

1 Natural History of Man, p. 179. See also a Paper by Dr. J. Beddoe, 
On the Permanence of Anthropological Types, published in the Memoirs of 
the Anthropological Society of London. Vol. ii. p. 37. As far as town 
life is concerned, Dr. Beddoe is not of opinion that it has any influence 
in darkening the hair. In some cases, as in Somersetshire, he has 
found the natives of towns to be lighter than those of the surrounding 
country. P. 42. At the same time, his observations quite confirm the 
opinion "that the invading Teutons were fairer than the prior 
inhabitants " of the parts of Britain to which he refers. 



464 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

much has yet to be explained in the wide divergence 
observed. Besides, on that theory, the people of Wales, 
as well as others, ought to be growing darker ; dwellers in 
towns ought to be distinguished for their jet; and the 
negro race, from age to age ranging the open hills, desert, 
and jungle, ought to be found something else than black. 

Recurring to our question we again ask : How have the 
English become a dark-haired race ? Is there any way of 
solving the difficulty besides the too usual, but always 
unsatisfactory one of cutting the knot ? What help does 
science proffer ? We are a scientific people, or are in 
process of becoming such. We have a British Association 
for the advancement of Science. Can we advance the 
science of our own ethnological relations ? The traditional 
ethnology which now rules, and which is ever iterating the 
dogma that the English are descended from the Germans, 
or, which, as intended, is the same thing, from the Anglo- 
Saxons, is in direct conflict with the findings of history, 
physiology, the natural history of man, and ethnology. 
Some of our men of science delicately and apologetically 
hint that perhaps the Ancient Britons have had some little 
hand in the matter of beclouding the bright gold of our 
Saxon complexion ; and an occasional " historian " when 
he wants to account for so many slaves in Anglo-Saxon 
kingdoms is willing to venture a guess that they might be 
Britons. But on the whole we cling to our ancient faith, 
and allow science and history to go for nothing. 

There is one hypothesis at hand to account for our com- 
plexional change — an hypothesis, too, which, if we mistake 
not, both history and physical science justify : The people 
of England have abandoned the "fierce blue eyes " and 
"red locks" of ancient times in favour of the hazel, brown, 
and black eyes, and the brown and black hair, through 
some decided modification of race relation. Has this 
modification been occasioned by contact with the Celtic 



TiiE CYMRY DARK-HAIRED. 465 

aborigines of Britain r The affirmative of this seems to be 
the honest utterance of modern science. 1 

But are we sure that the Celts, and amongst them the An- 
cient Britons, were themselves of dark complexion r This we 
have hitherto of necessity assumed, and must now briefly 
prove. 

The Welsh of to-day, though not free from admixture — 
with Flemings and Norsemen in Glamorgan and Pem- 
broke, &c, with Iberians or Celtiberians — a modified form 
of their own stock — in the whole district embraced by 
ancient Siluria, and with English more or less all around 
the Principality, are on the whole the purest Celts we have 
in Briton (though by no means so unmixed as their cousins 
in Ireland;, and are a prevailingly dark-haired people. 2 
They were so in the middle ages ; they were so in the 
times of the Romans. 3 

1 The eminent Frenchman, M. Edwards, says that while the great 
linguist Mezzofanti, recognised in the irregular pronunciation of English 
the influence of the Welsh language, he, M. Edwards, saw in the com- 
plexion and features of the English people the images of the Ancient 
Britons. Des Caract. Pliysiolog. des Races Huiuaines, p. 102 et seq. 

2 The following incident came to our knowledge as this edition was 
passing through the press : — At a musical gathering of the Welsh in 
London, at Christmas, 1S73, an English friend of the author was 
greatly struck with the almost universally dark complexion of the 
persons present, and casually mentioned the circumstance, being at the 
time unaware of the doctrine and argument of this work. Assemblies 
in Wales invariably produce the same impression. 

1 Tennyson confirms the opinion that the old Britons, as a rule, 
were dark. His works have done not a little to cast an air of unreality 
about the story of King Arthur, even those parts of it which are mani- 
festly historical ; but he has often managed by his allusions to give as 
correct representations as if he were writing history. Thus he makes 
Queen Bellicent, speaking of Arthur and his race, say : 
" Dark my mother was, in eyes and hair, 
And dark in hair and eyes am I, and dark 
Was Gorlois ; yea, and daik was Uilier, too, 
Well-nigh to blackness ; but this king [Arthur] is fair 
Beyond the race of Briton= and of men." — Holy Grail, p. 20. 

II If 



466 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

No one can observe the names of persons scattered 
through the ancient records of Wales, the Mabinogion, the 
Triads, the Bonedd y Saint (genealogy of the saints), the 
Brnfs, the Laws, See. ; and the names of families, chiefs, 
bards, Sec. ; without observing a phenomenon which the 
records of no other people perhaps so amply exhibit. We 
mean the frequent occurrence of names taken from the 
colour of the hair. It was a principle of name-giving with 
the Welsh to embody in the name (or surname, or nick- 
name) the personal quality most observable in the man, or 
the most marked circumstance connected with his history. 
The principle was one indeed followed by other nations, 
by the Teutonic nations, by the Romans. William I. was 
William the Bastard ; William II., his son, was AVilliam 
Rufus ; John was John Lackland ; Caligula the emperor 
was known by this nickname (from caligce, the foot-dress of 
the common soldiers) which he received when a boy, 
though his proper name was Caius Csesar. The Welsh had 
a liking so deeply inwoven into their nature for marking 
personal peculiarities by names, that they have not to this 
day altogether abandoned it. In some districts it develops 
a vicious habit of using nicknames ; but more generally it 
is a traditional semi-literary semi-heraldic custom, closely 
allied, however, in its seriousness to the serio-comic, and 
frequently in healthy keeping with the quiet humorousness 
of the race. Vortigern is doomed for ever to be known by 
the alliterative nickname, Gwrtheyrn Gwrtheneu (of per- 
verse lips), because he invited the Saxons (who indeed 
required no invitation; over to Britain, and put them 
in the way of winning the land. Warriors are often 
complimented for their strength, as Caradog Vreich- 
vras (of the large or strong arm' : good princes for 
their moral qualities, as Ivor Jlacl (the generous), 
llvw-'l Dda (the good . Among the idiosyncracies 



THE CYMRY DARK-HAIRED. 467 

registered, as we have said, the colour of hair is very 
frequently found. 

The two colours most attended to are black and red, but 
with a considerable preponderance in favour of the former. 
Bards, when distinguished by their complexion, are almost 
always black or red, die or cock. Thus Gwilym Ddit, (Wil- 
liam the black) ; Llywelyn Goch (Llewelyn the red.) The 
softening of the initial consonant of the qualifying word is 
always observable — d into dd, or soft ///, and c into g, &c 
Along" with " black" and " red/ 5 we occasionally meet with 
"white" (gcuyn), "grey" [llzvyd), but never, that we 
remember, with " yellow." 

Among the " bards " registered in the Myyyrian Archai- 
ology of Wales between A.D. 1280 and 1330, there are six 
bearing names of colour : four " blacks," one " red," and 
one " grey" — Gwilym Ddu, Llywelyn Ddu, Goronwy Ddu y 
Dafydd Ddu (black), Llewelyn Goch (red), and Iorwerth 
Llzvyd (grey). 

In the registers of the Welsh men-at-arms who followed 
Yvain de Galles (Owen of Wales), Jehan Win (John Wynn),. 
and Robin ab Llzuydin (Robin the son of the little grey 
man), to France in the 14th century, we find several per- 
sons distinguished by the colour of their hair ; but perhaps 
the soldier's partiality for the " red" led some to assume 
an epithet which their physical aspect but approximately 
justified — at all events, although this indicates but little, 
in these lists the reds are nearly as numerous as the 
blacks. 

On the whole, general indications of this kind exist in 
sufficient number to show that the dark complexion was 
prevalent among the Welsh of the middle ages ; and we 
all know that such is the case in our own day. If persons 
of royal rank, like Boadicca, or others of commanding- 
position, who were not positively dark, or who fell in with 

11 2 



468 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the fashion of imitating the admired Germans by using 
saffron, are described in rhetorical phrase as " golden- 
haired," we know what value is to be attached to the 
description. 

But now as to the complexion of the Ancient Brito?is. 
Of them, specifically, in this matter few notices remain, 
but there are a few, and these are suggestive, and as the 
Gauls and the Britons were identical in race, we can 
receive the description of one as applicable to all. 

Tacitus, 1 speaking of the Caledonii, a people largely 
impregnated, be it remembered, with Scandinavian blood, 
says they had yellow hair (rutilca comcc) ; but as, with the 
eye of a keen observer, he sees in their complexions and 
stature signs of derivation from the Germans (Gcrmanicam 
origincm) , he probably was writing only of the seacoast 
settlers, who, at different times, had crossed over from 
North Germany and Scandinavia. 

Of the Silures of South Wales, who, whether or not of 
Iberian race, were certainly more genuine Celts than the 
others — Tacitus, as already mentioned, says, that they had 
dark embrowned complexions (colorati vultus) , and that 
those nearest Gaul resembled the Galli. AVe must then 
ask, what as to complexion were the Galli ? 

With respect to the Gauls in the matter of complexion, 
it is a significant fact that in order to gain a high degree 
of xanthousness, they were obliged to have recourse to 
dyeing. Livy writes that they had, not rutihv coma?, red 
hair, but rutilaUv comic, "reddened hair." Most Con- 
tinental scholars translate rutilata here in the light of the 
known custom among the Gauls, by the equivalents 
"reddened," or "made red": thus lleusinger has "ge- 
rotheteshaar"; S< huurtzkopf (1593), "rot gefitrbthar"; and 

1 Vita. Aerie. 1 1. 



GAULS DARKER : GERMANS REDDER. 469 

Guerni, " chevelure roussie." Somehow, the ancients had 
a liking for red hair. The Gauls possibly displayed 
this weakness under Germanic influence. A fashion 
fever had laid hold upon them. They had learned 
and had seen that the great and terrible nations of 
the Germans had by nature flashing blue eyes, and 
glowing red hair. How could they be equal to the 
Germans, and strike terror into their enemies by the 
fierceness of their looks, as well as participate in the 
admiration which all surrounding tribes felt for the Ger- 
mans ? The Germans were red by the gift of nature ; 
they, to whom nature had been more niggard in this 
case, would make up the deficiency with paint ! So 
they became a people possessing, not riitilcc comcc, red 
or ruddy hair, but rutilataz comce, hair made or coloured 
red. Would any people whose complexion and hair 
were by nature light and red, buy saffron to paint them- 
selves so r ! 

We now recur to Strabo's words, already mentioned, 
where he said that the Gauls were not so red as the 
Germans, or, which is the same thing, that the Germans 
were redder than the Gauls. The Gauls 5 attempts at 
colouring were not quite successful ; the disguise was too 

1 We have pleasure in giving here the opinion of a very acute ethno- 
logical observer, the late Rev. Dr. Rowland Williams, who, in a written 
note upon this passage — the original MS. having been submitted to his 
inspection before printing — says : — " I rather hold that Northmen, 
Germans, Gauls, were all light, or xanthous— the Northman lighter, 
Gaul yellower, German redder; but I still hold that the South of 
France with its Aquitanian, i.e. Iberian, blood, and with its warm, 
vinous climate, transformed the Gallic race, and we ascribe to the 
Celts, as Celtic, features which they only adopted from older or more 
southern races. Are not such characteristics generated in situ, and not 
merely inherited ? " Many other valuable notes by the same hand were 
left on the MS., some of which have in substance been incorporated 
with the text. 



470 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



transparent ; they were still held to be a darker people 
than the Germans. 

But we have another piece of information by Strabo 
which is very useful in this place. While the Gauls were 
less xanthous than the Germans, he tells us that the 

1 Britons were still less xanthous than the Gauls. " The 
men are taller than the Celtae (Gauls), with hair less yellow, 
and looser built in their persons." 1 The Britons were 
therefore known to this acute and accurate writer to be 
two degrees darker than the Germans ; and Prichard has 
been led by the circumstance to make this emphatic 
observation : " The difference [between Britons and Gauls] 
must have been strongly marked in order to have drawn 
the attention of a writer who seldom takes notice of 
physical characteristics. It appears, then, that the Britons 
were a darker race than the Celts of the Continent." 2 
Prichard had thus advanced so far as to recognize and 
declare the fact of the deeper tinge of the old Britons. 
He had also, as we have seen, declared that the English, 
unlike their reputed Germanic ancestors, are a race dark 
in the proportion of eighty per cent And yet he seems 
never to have perceived how the old British hue could 
have imparted itself to the modern English. This, how- 
ever, was seen by later, and especially by Continental 
naturalists — Pruner Bey, one of the best scientific writers 
on the human hair, had, in 1864, come to this conclusion : 
" Cross-breeds are recognisable by the fusion and juxta- 
position of the characters inherent in the hair of their 
parents. Whilst the red colour forms on the one hand, 
as it were, a bond of union between the most disputed 

1 Q'L Si cvSpcs ci/.ajK^ijrci 

Toh <rd/.La<rt. Geogr. lib. iv. See also in Monument. Hist. Brit. vol. i. 
p. vi. 

ys. His!, of Mankind, iii. 1 t. 



GAULS DARKER: GERMANS REDDER. 47 1 

races, the brown colour may be considered 'as establishing 
the transition between the light and the darkest shades." 1 
M. Pouchet adopted the same view, and published it in 
his well-known work on the plurality of the human race. 2 

Suetonius says that Caligula compelled certain Gauls to 
redden and let loose their hair, as well as learn the German 
language, and assume barbarian names. " Coegitque non 
tantum rutilare et submittere comam, sed et sermonem 
Germanicam addiscere et nomina barbarica ferre." 3 This 
were idle work, in the matter of rutilare, if their hair 
was already red. At least these particular Gauls neither 
had red hair by nature, nor had yet learned the art of 
painting it. 

Modern ethnology pronounces the Celts of the Silurian 
branch " black in eyes and hair ; complexion dark, with a 
ruddy tinge." 4 " But," we may be told, " the Silurians 
may have been Iberians." Yes, but the Siluro-Iberians 
may also have been Celt-Iberians. 

Need more be said to prove that the Celts of Gaul and 
Britain were darker than the Germans or Anglo-Saxons r 

The conclusion we arrive at is/ that the dark hair and 
complexion of the modern English, amounting, at least, to 
an average of four-fifths, or 80 per cent, of the population, 
the proportion approved by Prichard, are owing in the 
main to admixture on a large scale with the Ancient 
Britons. 

2. The form of the cranium. 

It is not unusual to consider the stature, the physiog- 
nomy, the form of the hand and foot, as distinguishing 
marks of race, but we omit these as too indeterminate. 

The attention bestowed of late years upon the study of 

1 Anthrop. Review, Feb. 1864, pp. 23, 24. 

2 Plurality des Races Humaines. Engl. Edit., p. 104. 

3 Vita Calig., c. 47. * Latham's Varieties of Man, p. 530. 



472 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

the human skull, has been fruitful in most valuable results. 
A classification has been established which forms the basis 
of all approved comparison and reasoning on the subject. 
This classification is at least of some use in the present 
case, although it has by no means been satisfactorily 
shown that cranial measurements are of all the value which 
some have ascribed to them in this argument. As in 
phrenology, so here. The study of the cranium renders a 
safe foundation for certain general conclusions, though it 
fail in the minuter details. 

It has been ascertained that a certain form of skull 
distinguishes each great variety of the race ; that savage 
races have a form of head which separates them from the 
civilized ; and that the most cultivated nations, by reason 
of their finer cranial development, are easily classified 
together. The influence of culture goes so far as to bring 
the skulls of different races into near approximation to 
each other, and it has been ascertained that the most 
advanced nations have a form of skull more approaching 
the long oval than the " square," or roundish, or short oval. 
" The most civilized races," says Prichard, " those who 
live by agriculture, and the arts of cultivated life, all the 
most intellectually improved nations of Europe and Asia, 
have a shape of the head which differs from both the forms 
above-mentioned " (the Australian and Mongolian). " The 
characteristic form of the skull among these nations may 
be termed oval or elliptical." 1 

Referring to the study of ancient skulls discoverable in 
pre-historic barrow-tombs in Denmark, Britain, and other 
parts, as moans of judging of the primeval inhabitants, the 
same excellent writer says : " There seems to be good 
reason to believe that by a collection of skulls and skeletons 
from these different sets of barrows, an historical series 
1 Natural History of Man, p. 



THE CELTIC AND TEUTONIC SKULL. 473 

may be established, each set displaying the remains of the 
races of people by whom they were erected." 1 The results 
of the Rev. Canon Greenwell's examinations of early 
British barrow-tombs on the Yorkshire Wolds have not yet 
been presented to us except in somewhat brief newspaper 
reports. They may be expected to throw much light upon 
the prevailing form of the Ancient .British cranium, and 
to assist in testing the value of Dr. Thurnam's theory, 
which, as yet, is quite unsettled, and which affirms a 
coincidence almost too singular to be true, namely, that 
the skulls and the barrows in which they are found are of 
corresponding form — " long barrows, long skulls ; round 
barrows, round or short skulls." 2 

Much of the work thus suggested by Prichard has now 
been performed both in Scandinavia and Britain, and the 
result, though not free from perplexities, yields on the 
whole a substantial aid to science. The most eminent 
Ethnologists, Palaeontologists, and Anatomists, nearly 
coincide in the opinion that the typical Celtic and Ancient 
Britisli skull is elongated — long oval ; and that the typical 
Gerinan and Scandinavian skull, both ancient and modern, 
is not elongated, but rather spheroidal, or short-oval — 
u roundish," "broad and short," "square." This, how- 
ever, is by no means the universal view. Dr. Barnard 
Davis, an eminent practical enquirer, has found among 
crania, considered ancient British, so many short and 
roundish, that he considered this the typical form. He 
says : — " We cannot assert that the Ancient Britons were 
brachycephalic, but only that they were brachycephalous. 
. . . . This was the prevailing type of their skull." — 
Crania Britan. p. 232. 

The majority of writers competent to declare an opinion, 

1 Natural History of Man, p. 193. 
2 See Journ. Anthrop. Society, 1867, p. exxiv. 



474 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH, 

however, are inclined to declare the British skull, and more 
generally the Celtic skull, oval and long, rather than 
brachycephalic. But to all rules there are exceptions : 
otherwise the science of probabilities would have no 
existence. It is not meant that among crania recog- 
nised as Ancient British or as "Celtic," there are none 
found which approach to the short oval, or rounded 
pyramidal form ; or that among the latter, there are none 
of the long oval form. That were contrary to fact, and 
contrary to the known results which the freedom, exercised 
by nature, everywhere produces. All that is meant is, that 
careful induction on the whole sanctions the general 
principle that Ancient British and Celtic skulls are long-oval 
(dolichocephalous) ; and that Ancient German and Scan- 
dinavian skulls are short-oval or roundish (brachycepha- 
-lous). We supply an illustration of both forms in Fig. i. 
and Fig. ii., following Lyell l ; and also an European and 
Greek head (Nos. iii. and iv.) from Prichard' 2 , which are 
of the same class of form as the Celtic. The Greek profile 
and cranium, high and well rounded in forehead, of medium 
length, and good breadth, are usually considered the most 
regular and beautiful in form of all. 

As to the form of head prevalent among the Greeks and 
Romans, ancient writers having left us no descriptions, we 
are obliged to rely upon the testimony of sepulchral 
remains, judging as well as we may, whether such and 
such remains are Greek, or Roman, according to the 
various accompanying signs. Pruner Bey considers that 
the Roman form is satisfactorily settled as oval or doli- 
chocephalic, when viewed from above appearing arched 
and elongated, with a front almost upright. "La forme 
du crane Romain est une des mieux anvties. Cost ici lc 
cas de dire: qui en a vu mi, les a vu tous. Crane ovale, 
1 EUmcnts of Otology, 1S65. - X.i!. Hist, of Man. 



THE CELTIC AND TEUTONIC SKULL. 475 

dolichocephale, orthognathe ; vu d'en haut, peu voute et 
d'une forme carree un peu allongee. Front presque droit, 
large et peu marque." * His opinion of the Greek cranium 
was that its form, equally with the Roman, was oval, but 
differing more from the Roman in the length and height of 
the posterior part than in breadth. " Compare au crane 
Romain, le Grec, egalement de forme ovale, differe par 
plus de longueur et de hauteur dans la partie posterieure 
et par moins delargeur." 

The Danish and Scandinavian sepulchres yield two 
types of skull — the roundish and the oval, and there is 
room for a difference of opinion as to their comparative 
antiquity ; but there is no difference as to their classifica- 
tion. They are believed to belong to the successive periods 
of stone, bronze, and iron. " In the antecedent era of 
stone, the primitive population of the North are said to 
have buried their dead in sepulchral vaults, carefully con- 
structed of large blocks of undressed stone. 2 From such 
burial places many sculls have been obtained by Scan- 
dinavian ethnologists which show that the ancient race 
had small heads, remarkably rounded in every direction, but 
with a facial angle tolerably large, and a well developed 
forehead." 3 

Some of these rounded skulls are found, according to 
Dr. Thurnam, one of the authors of the Crania Briiannica, 
among the properly Celtic, oval skulls, in the ancient 
tombs of France 4 ; and these, with similar ones, found in 
Ireland and Scotland, according to the Swedish ethno- 
logist, Retzius, are " so like those of the modern Lap- 

1 Bulletins de la Soc. cTAnthrop. de Paris, Jan., 1866. 

2 See, for a full account of these burial places, Worsaac's Primeval 
Antiquities of Denmark, pp.76 — 115. London, 1849. 

3 Lyell, Elements of Geology, ed. 1865, p. 113. 
i Mem. Anthrop. Soc., i. 135. 



476 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

landers, as to have suggested the idea, that the latter were 
the last survivors of the stone period in the Xorth of 
Europe." ! 

Retzius, however, we must mention, gives it as his 
opinion, that the earliest barrow or stone immured 
skulls of Denmark, are Celtic; and these skulls are oval. 
He also calls the "long oval skull" of the modern 
French and English, " the real Celtic " ; and the " shorter 
oval," with more protuberant sides, which he also observed 
in the same countries, he terms " Norman, and nearly 
related to the German." 2 

As is well-known by all versed in the subject, Con- 
tinental anthropologists, almost without exception, agree 
that the typical Celtic skull is long oval. Retzius, of 
Stockholm, has been cited. For many years the leading 
French naturalists have been on the same side. De Bel- 
loguet, Pruner Bey, Broca, Edwards, may be mentioned. 
Von Baer, of St. Petersburg, is of the same opinion. The 
eminent American craniologist, Morton, firmly held, and 
illustrated with infinite labour, in the Crania Americana, 
the view that the Celts were dolichocephalous ; and Dr. 
Daniel Wilson has powerfully advocated the same doc- 
trine. In short, scarcely a distinguished name among 
craniologists, except Dr. Thurnam, holds to the contrary. 

The two following positions with regard to the Teutonic 
skull seem to be pretty well established : 

i. The typical German skull is the broad and short 
oval. 

2. A decided resemblance exists between the old Anglo- 

1 Ibid, p. 113. 

2 Ethnologische Schriften, p. 64, "Ich fand die folgenden drei Formen 
in beickn Liindern gemeinschaftlich, aber in ungleichen Verhaltnissen 
vorkommend : 1. Diz runde Form, &c. 2. Eine lange, rm, die 
wahrt Celtische. 3. Eine kiirzere ovale Form, mit gewolbteren Seiten, 
welche die Normandische, nahe verwandt mil 1, ist." 



OLD TEUTONIC — MODERN CELTIC, SKULL. 477 

Saxon skulls found in the burial grounds of England, and 
the typical German skull. 

We are now, then, in a position to state, without pre- 
suming too much, that modern science on the whole, is 
in favour of the conclusion^ that Celtic sculls, including 
Ancient British, are of the long oval shape ; and that 
Teutonic skulls, including German and real Anglo-Saxon, 
are of the roundish, spheroidal, or short oval, shape. 

But, then, what of the modern Celtic, and the modern 
English ? Our whole labour would be useless without a 
comparison of its results with the English cranium. Some- 
thing, at least, although not all that we could wish, may- 
be learnt from this comparison. 

Now, it cannot well be questioned, that the prevalent 
form of head found in Wales, in Ireland, and in the Celto- 
English districts of Cumberland, Somerset, Devon, and 
Cornwall, is long oval, and that the prevalent form found 
throughout England generally, is long oval also. There 
seems to be no visible difference. In North Wales, in 
Anglesey more especially, there occur frequent instances 
of a high round head — the result, probably, of Danish 
admixture ; and in the South, in Pembrokeshire, colonised 
by Danes, Normans and Flemings, the same phenomenon 
is visible ; but taking Wales throughout, the prevailing 
head form is long oval. 

That the general form of the skull in England is long 
oval need hardly be proved. On this point, in confirmation 
of our own experience, and of the prevalent opinion of 
English and French naturalists, we have the result of 
Retzius's enquiries into the subject. " During an excur- 
sion in Great Britain in 1855," he writes, "I was able to 
satisfy myself anew that the dolichocephalic form is pre- 
dominant in England proper, in Wales, in Scotland, and 
in Ireland. Most of the dolichocephali of these countries 



478 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

have the hair black, and are very similar to Celts." * 
Retzius's judgment is justified by every one capable of 
observing. Shorter in the main than the ancient Celtic, 
and perhaps on an average very slightly shorter than the 
modern Welsh, it is still far from being the " square," 
broad, or globular German or Scandinavian head. 

How are we to explain this phenomenon ? How have 
the descendants of the "square" headed, stern, pugna- 
cious Saxons, become in the real, as they undoubtedly 
always have been in the figurative sense of the word, 
" long-headed " r We venture to answer, from the pre- 
ceding findings of scientific and antiquarian research, 
that they have become possessors of skulls of the Celtic 
type by extensive amalgamation with the Celtic race. The 
eminent writer, Dr. Daniel Wilson, as long ago as 1863, 
embodied this idea in the following emphatic words : 
"The insular Anglo-Saxon race in the Anglian and Saxon 
districts " [as distinguished from Scotland] " deviates from 
its Continental congeners, as I conceive, mainly by reason 
of a large intermixture of Celtic blood traceable to the 
inevitable intermarriage of invading colonists chiefly 
male, with the British women. But if the Celtic head be 
naturally a short one " [a notion he is combating], "the 
tendency of such admixture of races should have been to 
shorten the hybrid Anglo-Saxon skull, whereas it is essen- 
tially longer than the Continental Germanic type." - We 
do not question but that this junction may to some extent 
have taken place in the Cimbric Chersonese — probability 
lies strong in favour of such a supposition, and that the 
Celtic form as well as the Teutonic became subject through 

1 Archives des Sciences Physiques, 6cc. Geneva, i^t>o. See also Dr. 
Wil mi's Paper, Anthrop. Rev. of London, i 

- Prehist. Annals of Scotland, 2nd edition, 1S63, i. 278. Sec also an 
le by the same Author in the Canadian Journ l "4, re- 

printed in Anthrop Rev. of London, Feb. 1S65. 



MENTAL AND MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 479 

this junction to modification, presenting thenceforth more 
freely the variety of "long" and "short" skulls, which 
Dr. Thurnam has found so puzzling, and which has given 
origin to his theory of a two-fold type of cranium repre- 
senting two different waves and periods of early inhabi- 
tants — but the process must have mainly taken place on 
British ground. 

On this whole question scientific research has yet much 
light to throw. Many patient inquirers must institute in- 
vestigations, take measurements, and classify facts. It is 
a fertile and interesting field of study. At present, so far 
as enquiry has proceeded, the state of knowledge seems 
to be in favour of the view above enunciated. It is not 
advanced, however, as in itself conclusive ; it is simply a 
contribution — a small weight thrown into the scale of our 
general argument. 

SECTION II. 
Mental and Moral Characteristics. 

Here, again, we must necessarily limit our field of dis- 
cussion, fixing only on some few leading features in the 
mental character of the English which suit our subject, 
and whose partial treatment will not distort, though it but 
imperfectly expound, the subject. 

If, in finding the synthesis of the English character, we 
discover that it accords not with the old Teutonic charac- 
ter, we must search for the ground of the difference ; and 
if that ground is revealed in the known characteristics of 
the Ancient Britons, we need not further pursue our 
search. 

First, let us mark the broad mental and moral charac- 
teristics of the generic stocks — the Cells and the Teutons. 
No appreciable difficulty is encountered by philosophers in 



480 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

determining these two sets of general characteristics ; 
they stand out in relief, inviting recognition ; but as the 
inquiry approaches the specific branches which have shot 
out from the respective stocks, as for example, the Scotch 
on the one hand, and the Prussian on the other, divers 
difficulties, not easily got rid of, obstruct the way. 

Dr. Kombst has given as fair and comprehensive a 
description of the Celtic and Teutonic idiosyncracies as 
any we know. The main points are the following : l — 

Celtic Race. Teutonic Race. 

Quickness of perception; great Slowness, but accuracy of per- 

powers of combination ; appli- ception ; slowness, but depth and 

cation; love of equality, of society , penetration of mind; not bril- 

of amusement, of glory; want of liant in wit like the Celts; 

caution and providence ; .... distinguished for acuteness, 

national vanity ; fine blandishing fondness for independence more 

manners ; great external polite- than rank ; provident, cautious, 

ness, without internal sympathy ; reserved, hospitable: with aris- 

irascible; not forgetful of injuries; tocratic conservative tendencies; 

little disposition for hard work ; respect for women ; sincerity, 

(abounding in wit, &c.) adventurous, dec. 

This is the substance of Kombst's analysis, and it must 
be allowed to be on the whole faithful, [n his full descrip- 
tion, however, it is evident enough that he had the 
French before him as the type of the Celtic character ; 
hence he has introduced some features which are by no 
means prominent in the Celtic populations of Britain, such 
as "great external politeness" "without internal sym- 
pathy," "love of glory," &c. It may also be fairly ques- 
tioned whether he is right in including " application " as 
amongst the idiosyncracies of the Celtic race ; this quality 
most certainly does belong to the Teutonic. 

We want, however, to find out the differentia of the true 

1 See Berghaus's Physical Atlas, Johnstone's Ed. (Kombst's Ethno- 
graphic 3/.//' of Great Britain and Ireland). 



THE "DIFFERENTIA" OF THE ENGLISHMAN. 48 1 

Englishman as compared with the true Celt, and true 
Teuton. The Englishman is not a faithful copy of the 
genuine German of ancient times. He exhibits intellectual 
and ethical characteristics which did not prominently enter 
into the synthesis of the German character — we are not 
speaking of the modern German, for that would be beside 
the point and unquestionably unjust — such, for instance, as 
inventiveness, quickness, constructiveness, imaginative- 
ness, tenderness, benevolence, liberality, individuality, and 
religious ideality. And as to the Celt, again, a great 
number of the weighty, solid, strong qualities of the 
English separate them widely from him. 

The whole story of the Celt is, as an eminent writer 
has pictured it, 1 marked by not a little grandeur and 
mystery. He certainly has been a roving child of nature ; 
wild, impulsive, proud, irascible, uncalculating, feeble in 
purpose, unapt for government, ever attempting the 
sublimest, often the sublime and ridiculous in one — as 
ex. gr. now in Ireland — but ever accomplishing a failure. 
His deeds in past ages have been unique, heroic, terrible, 
and his miscarriages affecting. The Celts' progress 
through Asia and Europe, seen in the dim light of an 
imperfect history, and, therefore, probably partaking of the 
fascination and grandeur which mystery never fails to lend, 
deserves to be painted in hues befitting the trail of a comet. 
If you compare their march to that of a river, it is a suc- 
cession of cataracts and foaming torrents. Everything 
seems to be abnormal and exceptional. Growth is not a 
steady development ; enterprise is not according to plan ; 
the most momentous predicaments are treated as unreali- 
ties; means are not measured to ends ; the creations of fancy 

1 See Cornhill Magazine, March, April, May, 1S66. These able 
articles by Mr. Matthew Arnold have since been published in volume 
form, entitled, On the Study of Celtic Literature. 

1 I 



482 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

are taken as facts. The Britons in all ages have been ex- 
amples of all this. Vast numbers of the Irish of to-day are, 
beyond all comparison, its most striking illustrators. Mr. 
Matthew Arnold, with the insight of genius, has happily 
hit upon the chief weakness of the Celt — his disbelief in 
the authenticity of fact. The present disturbers of the 
peace of Ireland persistently ignore the magnitude 
of the power they wish to foil. 1 The true Celt idealizes 
his own future according" to an exuberant fancy, un- 
governed by reflection, and proceeds to the enjoy- 
ment of that future like one whose path was clear, 
and whose success was decreed by fate. Hence the grand 
attempts often made — the occasional heroic achievements 
— the frequent, even customary abortions. Physiology 
and psychology tell us that the great characteristics of the 
different branches of the Celtic race are brilliancy of con- 
ception, ardency of temperament, and uncontrollable de- 
sire for action. We all know how quick, fitful, whimsical, 
and emotional they are, — how inapt for council, diplomacy, 
organization, patient labour, and "biding of time." 

The fancy and imagination of the Celt, as displayed in 
Middle Age literature, have never yet been duly recognised. 
Their manifestations were often grotesque, unconnected, 
inharmonious, but most undoubtedly carried upon their 
front the imprint of genuine poetry. Mental gifts and 
habits, like physical characteristics, may re-appear after 
long, partial, or total temporary obscuration. A nation's 
life, like an individual's, may through violence or dis- 
ordered function, be subject to suspension, and, after a 
while, by degrees, again recover its former consciousness 
and brightness. The seeds of poetic inspiration and genius 
lodged in the Cymric mind, once under Roman culture, 

1 This was written at the height of the " Fenian " agitation in 1 



THE CELT IN MIDDLE -AGE LITERATURE. 483 

were buried under heavy masses of rubbish during the 
barbaric wars of the Saxon conquests. Little time was 
then enjoyed for letters, and the stores of literary treasures 
which had been accumulated were rudely swept to the 
abyss. New generations with slighter culture grew up, 
and the intellect of the Cymry waned into a condition not 
out of keeping with the sterner barbarism of their Anglo- 
Saxon neighours. The force which prevented the return 
of deeper chaos and night, however weakened by corrupt 
superstitions was Christianity. But though the depressing 
influences were strong, the Cymric intellect was not wholly 
stupefied ; its schools of learning were the first in Britain 
(see Appendix C), and to the Cymry of Wales, it is more 
than probable, is due the honour of having imparted 
to the thought and literature of Europe an impulse far 
more powerful than was imparted in those times by any 
other people. The mixed race peopling England were 
slow in developing any kind of literature. The still com- 
paratively unmixed Celts of Wales and Armorica were far 
in advance of them, and by a happy combination of con- 
structive power, love of the marvellous, and a fancy of 
boundless range and fertility, succeeded in creating a type 
of literature until then probably unknown in Europe- 
The romance poetry, and prose which in the Middle Ages 
swayed with such potency in Brittany, Provence, Italy, 
Germany, and England, it is well-known had its origin 
amongst the Cymry. Geoffrey of Monmouth is the real 
parent of the whole brood. The adventures of Merlin, 
King Arthur and his knights, Richard Cceur de Lion, and 
a host of others, follow, and these culminate at last in the 
Trouveres poems of France, the Italian epic romances, 
and, with increasing extravagance of fancy, combined with 
an ignorant superstition, in the saintly fables of the Church. 
Among the Welsh Mabinogiou are remains indicating a 

I 2 



484 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

fancy as playful, and a feeling as delicate and tender, as 
are found in the productions of any age. How came this 
to pass ? Can it be explained as being anything less than 
the re-appearance of hereditary characteristics r The 
culture and genius which, dating from the pre -Roman 
times, had received expansion from Roman enlightenment, 
and asserted their presence irom age to age, even under 
the disadvantages of incessant political disaster, broke forth 
at last from obscure situations, and spread a light and 
a vivifying power over many lands, which the conquering 
Teuton scarcely as yet knew how to appreciate. 

Indeed the romance literature was of too airy a nature 
to emanate from, or easily find entertainment by the truly 
Teutonic mind — even allowing to that mind a larger share 
of poetic susceptibility and inventiveness than is meted out 
to it by the balances of severe pro-Celtic critics. But 
in truth no such Teutonic mind has existed in Britain 
since the first ages of the Saxon Conquest. Even the new 
race of amalgamated Britons, Saxons, and Angles, called 
English, was too matter-of-fact and sensuous, or too much 
under the guidance of its ever present Saifiwv common-sense^ 
to relish these imaginary creations about giants, elves, and 
enchanters. These were the proper products of the Celtic 
■imagination, and found congenial reception among all the 
nations of the continent, especially in Brittany, Normandy, 
and Provence, where the Celtic race was in the ascendant. 

Now, whatever the value of the romance literature con- 
sidered in itself, it undoubtedly speaks much for the people 
who gave it birth. We refuse credit to the pages of 
Geoffrey .as descriptions of authentic facts, simply because 
they are not history, but fiction ; but estimated as fiction, 
it is impossible not to accord to them admiration. The 
question is not as to the absolute value, per sc, of certain 
productions concerning heroic or preternatural beings and 



THE ROMANCE LITERATURE CELTIC. 485 

adventurers, but the mental force and fertility of invention 
they exhibit. In so far as the Middle Age romances 
display these, they display the genius and culture of the 
Celtic race of the times. 

It is not of material import whether the cradle of that 
literature which produced the stories of Arthur, Merlin, 
Richard Cceur de Lion, Roland, Sir Ferumbras, and the 
hosts of others of similar vein, was Brittany or Wales, but 
probability decidedly inclines in favour of the latter. The 
natural course of propagation would be first to Brittany — 
with which the Welsh held constant intercourse — then to 
Normandy, then to the remoter provinces of France. The 
romances would receive from each country and language, 
as they advanced, some new conceptions, gradually assume 
new forms, and develop new characters, some of Southern 
and some of Northern paternity, and in course of time 
furnish reasonable grounds, in the absence of reliable 
accounts, for the conflict of opinion which has existed, 
some ascribing to them a Scandinavian, some an Italian, 
some a British origin. 

Mr. Hallam — by no means predisposed to give the Celt 
undue credit for genius — is obliged, upon this question, to 
lean in his favour. Speaking of the origin of French 
literature, and having mentioned the versified lives of 
Saints by Thibault de Vernon (nth century), Taillefer, 
Philip de Than [temp. Henry I.), &c, he says : " but a more 
famous votary of the muse was Wace, a native of Jersey, 
who, about the beginning of Henry's II. 's reign, turned 
Geoffrey of Monmouth' s history into French metre. Besides 
this poem, called Le Brut d' Anglctcrre, he composed a series 
of metrical histories, containing the transactions of the 
dukes of Normandy, from Rollo, their great progenitor — 
who gave name to the Roman de Rou — down to his own 
age. Other productions arc ascribed to AVace, who was, 



486 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

at least a prolific versifier, and if he seems to deserve no 
higher title at present, has a claim to indulgence, and even 
to esteem, as having far excelled his contemporaries, 
without any superior advantages of knowledge. In emula- 
tion, however, of his fame, several Xorman writers addicted 
themselves to composing chronicles, or devotional treatises, 
in metre. If the poets of Normandy had never gone 
beyond historical and religious subjects they would 
probably have had less claim to our attention than their 
brethren of Provence. But a different and far more 
interesting species of composition began to be cultivated 
in the latter part of the 12th century. Without entering 
upon the controverted question as to the origin of romantic 
fictions, referred by one party to the Scandinavians, by a 
second to the Arabs, by others to the natives of Brittany, 
it is manifest that the actual stories upon which one early 
and numerous class of romances was founded are related 
to the traditions of the last people. These are such as turn 
upon the fable of Arthur ; for though we are not entitled 
to deny the existence of such a personage, his story seems 
chiefly the creation of Celtic vanity. Traditions current in 
Brittany, though probably derived from this island, became 
the basis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin prose, which, as 
has been seen, was transposed into French metre by Wace. 
The vicinity of Normandy enabled its poets to enrich then- 
narrative with other Armorican fictions, all relating to the 
heroes who had surrounded the table of the Son of Uther." ' 
Mr. Ellis is still more explicit. " Various theories have 
been proposed for the purpose of explaining the origin 
of romantic fiction, which has been successively ascribed to 
the Scandinavians, to the Arabians, and to the Armorieans, 
while some authors have supposed it to be of Provencal, 
and others, of Norman invention. Bishop Percy, to whose 

1 Europe in the Middle Ages, chap. i.\. 



THE ROMANCE LITERATURE CELTIC. 487 

elegant taste we are indebted for the l Reliques of Ancient 
English Poetry,' the most agreeable selection, perhaps, 
which exists in any language, has prefixed to his third 
volume a short, but masterly dissertation, in which he 
assigns to the Scalds the honour of having produced the 
earliest specimens in this mode of composition. He 
observes that these poets, the historians of the North, as 
the bards were of Gaul and Britain, continued for a time 
the faithful depositaries of their domestic annals ; but that, 
at a subsequent period, when history was consigned to 
plain prose, they gradually attempted to set off their 
recitals by such marvellous fictions as were calculated to 
captivate gross and ignorant minds. Thus began stories 
of adventures with giants, and dragons, and witches, and 
enchanters, and all the monstrous extravagances of wild 
imagination, unguided by judgment and uncorrected by 
art. He contends that the vital spirit of chivalry, its 
enthusiastic valour, its love of adventure, and its extrava- 
gant courtesy, are to be found in the Scaldic songs ; that 
these characteristic qualities existed in the manners of the 
northern nations long before the establishment of knight- 
hood as a regular order ; that the superstitious opinions of 
these people respecting fairies and other preternatural 
beings, were extremely analogous to the later fictions of 
romance ; that the migration of a certain number of 
Scalds into France, as attendants on Rollo's army, is at 
least extremely probable ; and that, since the first mention 
of the stories of chivalry occurs in the song of a Norman 
minstrel [Taillefer] at the battle of Hastings, this filiation 
of romance is equally consonant to history and to pro- 
bability. 

"The only rational objection, perhaps, which can be 
adduced against this system is, that it is too exclusive. 
The history of Charlemagne, it is true, appears to have 



488 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

been very early in favour with the Normans, because the 
song of Rollo, certainly, and that of St. William very 
possibly, were anterior to the Conquest ; and it is also 
likely that these and other fragments of traditional poetry 
may have contributed the principal materials of those longer 
works, which, at a much later period, formed the regular 
romances of Renaud of Montauban,Fierabras, Otual,Ferra- 
gus, and the other heroes of Charlemagne. But this does not 
account for the much more numerous and popular fictions 
concerning Arthur and his Knights, which occupy not 
only so many of the romances, but also of the lays and 
fabliaux of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and are 
evidently derived, as the learned editor very candidly 
acknowledges, from a different source. Besides, though the 
manners of chivalry, as exhibited in the Rolands and 
Olivers, are common to the Launcelots and Tristrams, 
nothing' can be more opposite than the morals of the 
heroines; and the frailties of an Yseult, or a Guenever, 
afford a lamentable contrast to the severe chastity of a 
northern beauty. But surely, in surveying a system of 
fictions in which love and war are the chief agents, it is 
impossible to abstract our attention altogether from the 
delineations of female character. 

" The third hypothesis which supposes Brittany to be 
the native country of romantic fiction, has been, with some 
modifications, adopted by Leyden in his very able intro- 
duction to the ' Complaynt of Scotland,' and has the 
advantage of being free from the objections which have 
been made to the preceding theories. Similarity of 
language proves the similar origin of the Armoricans and 
of the natives of this island; and the British historians, 
such as they arc, affirm that a large colony of fugitives 
from Saxon tyranny took refuge in Brittany, and carried 
with them such of their archives as had escaped the fury 



THE ROMANCE LITERATURE CELTIC. 4 89 

of their conquerors. The Norman poets themselves fre- 
quently profess to have derived their stories from Breton 
originals ; and their positive testimony seems sufficient to 
prove that the memory of Arthur and his knights was pre- 
served in Armorica no less than in Wales and in Cornwall. 
With respect to the tales of Charlemagne and his imaginary 
peers, unless we suppose them to have been imported by 
the Normans from Scandinavia, we must refer them to 
Brittany; because the Bretons were the first people of 
France with whom the Normans had friendly intercourse, 
their province having been attached as a sort of fief to 
Normandy at the first settlement of that duchy uuder Rollo. 
It is not improbable, as I have already mentioned, that a 
mutual exchange of traditions may have introduced Ogier, 
and other Danish heroes, to the Court of Charlemagne, and 
perhaps a similar commerce between the bards of Wales 
and Brittany may have given to Arthur his Sir Launce- 
lot and other French worthies. The supposition that some 
traditional anecdotes concerning these two princes of 
romance were already current among the Normans, would 
explain the facility with which the very suspicious chronicles 
of Geoffrey and Turpin were received, and the numerous 
amplifications by which they were, after their translation 
into French, almost immediately embellished. 

" The reader will perceive that the preceding systems 
are by no means incompatible, and that there is no 
absurdity in supposing that the scenes and characters of 
our romantic histories were very generally, though not 
exclusively, derived from the Bretons, or from the Welsh 
of this island ; that much of the colouring, and perhaps 
some particular adventures, may be of Scandinavian 
origin, and that occasional episodes, together with part of 
the machinery, may have been borrowed from the 
Arabians." l 

1 Early English Romances. Introduction, pp. 16-20. 



490 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

The quantum of proof in favour of our general argument 
derivable from these considerations may be small, but to 
the extent of its measure is, practically, unassailable. The 
higher tone of mind in Britain, in the Middle Ages, was 
among the Cymry, as proved by its literary products. 
Brittany was in constant communication with "Wales, 
receiving the impress of its culture, and assisting to hand 
over to the continent the productions of its intellect. If 
the semi-Teutonic mind of England and Normandy followed 
in the same wake and produced a romance literature of 
equal or superior merits when the example had been set 
by others, it may be worthy of commendation as an imitator 
and improver, but not of the crown of honour as originator. 
To the Celtic mind belongs this honour ; and this mind 
was capable of the achievement by reason not merely of 
its rare characteristics of impulsiveness, sensibility, and 
brilliant fancy, but also of its antecedently inherited cul- 
ture, which in its effects lay hid, like the latent force of a 
seed to be developed into vitality and visible form when 
the external conditions of germination favoured. 

So far at present of the Celt. But now what of the 
Teuton — the old genuine German-Teuton, the ancestor, 
according to popular apprehension of the Anglo-Saxon, 
and through him, of the great English race. At what 
point of time can he have broken off from the vivacious 
imaginative Celt ? By what strange differencing influences 
of climate, mode of life, intermixture with phlegmatic races, 
can he have been met since he quitted the paternal roof 
where the Celt and he were brothers ? As long as history 
has known him, he has been a rather slow, deliberate, and 
cautious individual ; and yet, though slow, a moving steady- 
going individual. You may, perhaps, expect nothing 
brilliant, tender, poetic, from the true, typical German ; 



THE TRUE TEUTON. 49 1 

but it will excite no surprise if lie achieve something 
strangely great, in thinking or acting — for he is deliberate, 
clear-headed and strong ! This in brief is the German- 
Teuton. 

Now what shall we say of the Englishman r Is he a 
faithful reflection of either Celt or German-Teuton ? Of 
the Celt, he certainly is not ; most certainly not of the 
German-Teuton ! Can it be said that he is a copy of 
both combined ? Beyond question, think we, it can. His 
qualities are a selection from the best of both: 

The English must be either Celtic, or Teutonic, or both. 
They have no choice of other derivation. But they are 
not Celtic : they present leading features diametrically 
opposed to the Celtic idiosyncrasy, and we find on exami- 
nation that these features are German and Saxon ! On 
the other hand, they are not German ; for they present 
leading features which the slow deliberate old German 
never could have worn, and these features are Celtic ! 

The natural history of the English nation, we suspect 
must turn out to be a description of the processes and 
stages whereby Celt and Saxon were welded into one, and 
came to exhibit the characteristics, in one personality, of 
two antecedent national factors. " School histories " will 
continue for many years to come to say : "When the Saxons 
came over, all the Britons retired into the mountains of 
Wales." " There were no Saxons in England after the 
battle of Hastings/' may quite as truly be said. But 
"school histories" are not always the most critically 
accurate of informants ; and it seems full time to put faith 
in better guides on the present subject. Whether our 
hypothesis be that there has been a large intermixture of 
Celtic with Anglo-Saxon blood in Britain, or the contrary, 
it is at least demonstrably certain that the present English 
people are the exact similitude of the result which might be 



492 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

expected from such intermixture. A people which is at once 
loftily ambitious and plodding; imaginative and practical ; 
proud and patient ; energetic and cautious ; religious and 
" worldly ; " fertile of philosophers and traders ; of inven- 
tions and traditions ; declares on every page of its auto- 
biography as read in the deep imprint of its actual, and 
incomparably earnest life, that it is neither of Saxon nor of 
Celtic descent, but of both. And if not of both equally — 
then comes the question, on which side does the advantage 
lie. 

It may be objected that our representation of the Celt is 
not correct ; that, for example, the French have displayed 
great aptitude in diplomacy and government, although 
substantially a Celtic people. This is true. But the French 
people had the advantage of a Roman political education, 
of intellectual culture through the wholesale adoption of 
the Roman language, which latter the Celts of Britain and 
Ireland had not, and of a larg'e Frankmannic infusion. 
Despite all this, and much besides, however, the French 
people display to this clay the most essential characteris- 
tics, and amongst them, some of the weaker and more 
damaging characteristics of the Celtic race. Of these, we 
may mention a passion for excitement,.political disquietude, 
frivolity, national vanity. The French want nothing for 
}he accomplishment of the highest destiny, but a strong 
infusion of the Teutonic steadiness and gravity, 

It may again be argued that our description of the Celt 
does not agree with the Scottish character, which is known 
by all to exhibit as much caution and steady plodding' as 
that of the Englishman. We answer that our description 
of the Celt may be true, notwithstanding that it tallies not 
with Scottish idiosyncrasies. The Scotch arc much less 
Celtic than the Welsh— infinitely less so than the Irish. 
I he prevalence of brownish and yellow hair in Scotland is 



THE ENGLISH A CELTO- TEUTON RACE. 493 

a living history of the Scandinavian descent of a large 
portion of the inhabitants. From the earliest periods, 
Danes, Norwegians, and Low Germans made settlements 
on the Caledonian coasts, especially north and east — as 
the local names of those parts, notably of the Shetlands 
and Orkneys, to this day testify; and all know that these 
islands, originally peopled by Celts, were in after times 
mainly peopled by Northmen, and long remained under 
Danish or Norwegian rule. The Danish conquest of 
England settled vast numbers of Northmen in the south 
of Scotland, and the Western coast was seldom free from 
the irruptions of Norwegian and Danish adventurers. All 
these sources of admixture have well-nigh obliterated the 
Celtic features of a large proportion of the Scottish people, 
and given them several of their most marked and valuable 
characteristics. 

But to recur to our question : On which side does the 
advantage lie ? In the constitution of the English people, 
does the Celtic or the Teuto-Germanic ingredient pre- 
ponderate ? 

One man will say, the Germanic, because the language 
is chiefly Anglo-Saxon. But in the first place the 
English language is not chiefly Anglo-Saxon, and in 
the second place, even if it were so, the adoption of a 
language has no bearing on the question of proportion of 
race admixture. The language of Gaul became Roman, 
although few Romans merged into the population. The 
Norman conquerors of Neustria, on the other hand, adopted 
the French. In England the English people received the 
Norman. 

Another will say the Germanic, because the government 
proves to be in the hand of the Saxon. But this again 
says nothing as to preponderance of race, and it moreover 
assumes a very important point — viz., that the people who 



494 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

now govern are proper Saxons. The Danes obtained the 
government : Were they therefore more numerous than 
the former inhabitants ? The Normans obtained the 
government. The Roman legions gained the government 
of all Gaul. The English now govern the millions of India. 

A third — with a logic, by the way, more characteristic of 
the Celt than of the Saxon — will come forward and boldly 
declare the Germanic, because the whole character of 
the people of England is truly Anglo-Saxon — the mental 
genius of the nation is German from first to last. Now 
this is just what we have been showing that it is not. The 
character of the English is exceedingly far from being a 
copy of the Anglo-Saxon or Germanic; and the differentia 
cannot be traced to the effects of external influences — not 
even to the powerful agencies of secular civilisation and 
religion. 

Let the following summary of the leading psychological 
and ethical features of Celt, German, 1 and English be 
pondered. The characteristics "given are universally 
allowed. Each student can judge for himself from which 
side — the Celtic or the Teutonic— the eclectic Englishman 
has borrowed most. Of course, it may be argued that the 
source of mental and moral characteristics is not raciat, 
and to some extent this must be allowed to be true. But 
viewed in a broad light, the influence of race is seen to 
tell in no inconsiderable degree. 

1 The word " German" as used here cannot be taken as indicative 
of the people of modern German}-. It were incorrect to say that the 
Prussians, for example, are not an inventive people; and to pretend 
to believe that the modern Germans are not possessed of a poetic 
imagination while they own the names of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing. 
Klopstock, Korner, Arndt, and Uhland, to say nothing of the un- 
paralleled imaginative creations in philosophy of the schools of Leibnitz, 
Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermachcr, and Schelling, were a market' 
either ignorance or disingenuousness. But the modern Germans can 
have no material hare in the parentage of the English people. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



495 



Summary of Psychological Characteristics 



Celtic. 



Quickness and clear- 
ness of perception. 

Powers of combina- 
tion. 

Imagination. 

Wit, humour. 

Individuality. 
Loyalty to Princes. 



Love of society. 
Patriarchal or family 

government. 
Reverence. 



tho- 



Generosity. 



English. 

Deliberativeness. 

Accuracy and 
roughness. 

Directness. 

Clearness of percep- 
tion. 

Powers of combina- 
tion. 

Imagination. 

Wit, humour. 

Providence. 

Independence. 

Aristocratic tenden- 
cies. 

Adventure. 

Sociability. 

Sentiment of Home. 

Reverence. 
Patient labour. 
Silence and reserve. 
Generosity. 



German or Saxon. 
Slowness. 
Accuracy. 

Steady purpose. 



Providence. 

Aristocratic 

cies. 
Adventure. 



tenden- 



Patient labour. 
Silence and reserve. 



The following are qualities which the English may be 
said to have inherited from Celt and Saxon alike. 



Celtic. 
Quickness of percep- 
tion. 
Hospitality. 
Courage. 
Individuality. 



English. 
Power of abstraction 

and generalization. 
Hospitality. 
Courage. 
Self-assertion. 



German or- Saxon. 
Depth of thought. 

Hospitality. 

Courage. 

Sternness. 



There are certain great features of the English people 
of which it is hard to say whence they have been derived. 
Are truth, fidelity, sincerity, characteristics of the Celt ? 
Would the Cymry allow that these virtues belonged 
peculiarly to the kin of Hengist and Horsa ? Public 



49 6 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

benevolence, or organised charity, seems almost to be an 
idiosyncrasy of the English. 

Here ends our psychological discussion. It is simply 
suggestive — in no sense exhaustive. But it seems to prove 
that some of the noblest qualities, mental and moral, of 
Englishmen, are of Celtic origin. 

In reviewing this whole subject of physical, mental, and 
moral characteristics, it appears that he must be a bold 
man, if a genuine Englishman, who will declare that he is 
more Teuton than Celtic, or more Celtic than Teuton ; and 
he must be a bolder man still who will assert that he is 
purely Celtic and not at all Teuton, or purely Teuton and 
not at all Celtic. The anthropology of the English nation 
we conclude is in favour of the position held in these pages 
— viz., that the English owe their origin largely to the 
Ancient British race. The evidence, in this branch of it, 
is deposed by a witness that cannot err. That witness is 
Nature, not History. Its evidence depends not on opinion, 
theory, illegible parchment, distorted party representation, 
vague tradition. It is read in the ineffaceable characters 
of living features of myriads of men, and beams forth 
perpetually in the intellectual and moral activities of the 
nation. The signs of descent supplied by the physique and 
mental manifestations of a people are more infallible in the 
estimation of science than even the most categorical 
declarations of individual historians. On the skin, in the 
eyes, on every fibre of hair, is written the pedigree of the 
man. It is useless for him to refer to mere personal names, 
family parchments, traditions of descent, isrc, for though 
twenty generations ago he had William the Norman as 
his ancestor, the blood of the Norman has been intermixed 
many hundred times with many hundred times mingled 
blood of other races in the interval, and must by 
this time have become sadly diluted. To rely on the 



CHARACTERISTICS. 497 

loose statements of popular historians in a matter of 
science were absurd. The deliverances of anthropology, 
anatomy, physiology, and psychology, as well as the 
patient findings of antiquarian research, as contributive 
aids to ethnology, are clear, positive, unhesitating. They 
prove that the English nation is a Mosaic work of divers 
and harmonious colours ; but there are two colours which 
still predominate high above the rest — the light Teutonic, 
and the dark brown Celtic. The English mind is a com- 
pound of two classes of activities, each of essential moment 
in the creation of the highest order of thought — the ener- 
getic, warm, and ornamental Celtic, and the patient, pro- 
found, and stable Teutonic — 

"Genus unde Latinum, 
Albanique patres, atque alta mcenia Romse." 




KK 



49 8 



RECAPITULATION. 

It may not here be out of place to refresh the memory of 
the reader by bringing into a focus the chief lines of our 
argument, or rather of its results — necessarily omitting all 
details of facts and minute witnessings of history, science, 
and logic, which often carry with them the most convincing 
force. 

The reader can mentally retrace from his present point 
of view (he will pardon us the natural vanity of believing 
that he has passed through all the tangled wilderness we 
have spread out for him), all the main paths he has 
traversed. The different inhabitants of Britain at the time 
of the Roman invasion, though divided into many tribes 
or states, are seen to be all of one race — "the Ancient 
Britons." Their number is great — spread out over all the 
land from Kent to the Highlands. They are far advanced 
in the arts of life, are fond of trade, work in metals, carry 
on commerce with distant countries, are terrible in battle, 
have a regular kingly government, coin silver money, &c. 
The Romans themselves have hard work to subdue them 
after a hundred and fifty years and more of fighting, and 
having at length accomplished this task, are obliged to 
garrison some hundred fortresses to maintain order and 
draw revenue. 

The Romans after bestowing above 400 years of culture 
on Britain, resolve to leave it to the care of the natives, 
who at et up rival governments in different parts of 

the country, and are caught in the confusion 1 
tion by foes from without and from within, and are com- 



RECAPITULATION. 499 

pelled while suicidally fighting with each other, to fight 
for home and life against a fierce and terribly needy foreign 
foe. They are found to be so numerous, brave, and power- 
ful, that, though fated to compass their own ruin through 
perverse dissension and refusal to combine in time against 
the common enemy, they still manage by the isolated 
efforts of disjointed hosts, to dispute the ground for some 
hundred and fifty years, although in that time whole states, 
" becoming Saxons," had joined the aggressor, and turned 
their swords against their own countrymen. 

No signs appear of an "exterminating" warfare being 
carried on by either Romans or Germans. The natives, if 
submissive, are everywhere allowed to remain in their 
native districts — their title to property and liberty being 
changed — by the Romans they are invited to the privileges 
of citizens of maternal Rome, and by the Germans they are 
pressed to " become Saxons." Whole tribes pass over 
accordingly, and hosts of the common people of other tribes 
follow. Those who wish to retain their language and cus- 
toms are allowed to live in towns of their own, or to possess 
parts of towns, even within the bounds of the Anglo-Saxon 
kingdoms, and to live also under laws and magistrates of 
their own. Some 500 years after the first Saxon invasion, 
a great part of the South and West of England is called 
Wealh-cynne — the dominion of the Welsh, and the whole 
of Devon and Cornwall is still decidedly Celtic. In the 
North the kingdom of Strathclyde survives till within a 
few years of the Norman Conquest. At this time the 
inhabitants of Britain are mainly composed of the de- 
scendants of the Ancient Britons ! 

The Danes, if they add to the Teutonic population in 
their own persons, have previously greatly reduced it by 
their most sanguinary and desolating wars. The Normans 
bring over more Celts than Teutons. 

K 2 



500 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

The subject Britons are seen dwelling on the land under 
the protection of Saxon laws — holding land from the king — 
rising in the social scale from lowly to high conditions 
through possession of property — and having a personal 
wergild value, Sec, just like the Anglo-Saxons themselves. 

The English language, through the presence in the 
heart of the country of a population continuing to speak 
the Celtic tongue, becomes saturated with Celtic elements. 
Those elements are not such as were common to Anglo- 
Saxon and Celtic from times anterior to the Saxon 
Conquest — though many such exist — the result of pre- 
historic intercourse in the Cimbric Chersonese and North 
Germany — but actual introductions since the two races 
met on British ground. 

The local names of England, imposed by the Ancient 
Britons, and adopted from them by the Anglo-Saxons — by 
their number and their prevalence in distant localities 
almost all over the island, are clear witnesses not only of 
previous occupation by the Britons, but of conjoint occupa- 
tion for a great length of time — for by such conjoint 
occupation alone could a strange people speaking a strange 
tongue, and having no knowledge of writing, become 
familiar with the names whereby not only the g'reat natural 
features of the country, such as the mountains, hills, rivers, 
vales, &c, but less prominent objects in sequestered situa- 
tions, such as rivulets, dingles, knolls, homesteads, &c, 
had from time immemorial been known among the natives. 

To the vast proportion of Britons thus seen to bo mixed 
up with English society, and, under the ameliorating laws 
of the later Middle Ages, rising from a depressed to a free 
condition, and gradually forming an essential part of all 
ranks of the community, is added in later times, and 
especially in the present age, a eon-tant .stream al Celtic 
elements flowing in from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, so 



RECAPITULATION. 50 1 

that the name "Jones" is now more prevalent than either 
" Brown " or " Robinson," and is closely followed by the 
* l Scotts " and the " Murphys," and only eclipsed by 
** Smith ! " 1 

1 The appearance of Mr. Smiles's book, The Huguenots : their Settle- 
ments, Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland, reminds us of an 
accession in modern times to the Celtic element of the population of 
England, seldom thought of, but of a peculiarly interesting and valuable 
kind. The French Protestants, who, between 1550 and 1700, but 
chiefly during the "wars of religion," and on the "revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes," took refuge in this country, were vast in numbers 
and of inestimable worth to the moral life and industry of England. 
For a hundred and fifty years the flow of Protestant refugees, the 
flower of the population of Flanders and the different provinces of 
France, was almost incessant. Not less than 400,000 emigrated at the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In the first quarter of the seven, 
teenth century, London alone contained, among a population compara- 
tively small, not fewer than 10,000 foreigners, mainly Huguenots. They 
were also found in all the larger towns, in some, as Norwich, numbering 
several thousands. They were mostly of the merchant, manufacturing 
and artizan classes, and brought with them not only a peaceable, 
serious, religious spirit, but knowledge and skill in the industrial arts, 
especially in weaving, dyeing, tanning, and work in the precious metals. 
"Wherever they settled they acted as so many missionaries of skilled 
work, exhibiting the best examples of diligence, industry, and thrift, 
and teaching the English people in the most effective manner the 
beginning of those arts in which they have since acquired so much 
industry and wealth." They excelled as market gardeners, and the 
famous gardens of Wandsworth, Battersea, and Bermondsey, were 
amongst the results. Those who found refuge in England are estimated 
at one hundred thousand persons. They became leaders in the art and 
merchandise of the country. In paper-making they were supreme, 
and one of their descendants, Mr. Portal, is maker of our Bank- 
note paper of the present time. Many of their names became dis- 
tinguished in English history, literature, and science. Their hard 
application led to fortune and distinction, and some of our peerages 
are inherited by descendants of Huguenots, such as Radnor, Clancarty, 
De Blaquiere, Rendlesham, Taunton, Romilly ; and their blood is mixed 
with that of Russell, Elliot, Temple (Palmerston), Cavendish, and 
Osborne. Speaking generally, the blood of the Huguenots was Celtic 
(Gaelic) blood, and was therefore a contribution to the Celtic clement 
in the English nation. 



502 1HE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

If after this any doubt should exist as to whether 
the greater part of the actual population of England is a 
contribution from the Celtic race, nothing is wanted but 
simply to look the English in the face, scan their features, 
measure their skulls, watch the rapid, and profound opera- 
tions of their minds, and the humane and pious actions of 
their lives. In all these things they are now what they 
never were in the persons of their partial ancestors before 
they trod on British ground, and had the good fortune of 
"taking in," in more senses than one, the simple "Wylisc- 
man ! " 



503 



CONCLUSION. 

We have been engaged in slowly tracing the beginnings 
and early developments of one of the most colossal 
creations of time — the British nation ! Were we to examine 
the field of universal history, our survey would command 
no other such ethnological marvel. In no epoch, in no 
land has anything of the sort appeared. It would seem as 
if the world, at the birth of the British people, had grown 
consciously old and desolate, and that, like the fabled 
Phcenix, it had undertaken, by a painful but sublime 
process of fire, to renew itself; and the island of Britain 
was selected as the theatre where the prodigy was to be 
accomplished. 

It took a long time to lay the foundations of this great 
national superstructure. Some thousand years elapsed 
before all the kinds of materials were brought together. 
The Celtic tribes had inhabited the island probably for 
many hundred years before the republic of Rome was 
inaugurated; but, solitary and self-contained, they 
possessed an insufficient amount of those elements of 
expansion and development required for national 
maturity. The Roman added a mighty impulse by 
lodging in the mass the seeds of the old world's civilization, 
Christianity added a still mightier and sublimer force. 
The Saxons, Danes, and Normans, a rough and ener- 
getic race, poured in their successive contributions 
of influence ; and by the union of all into one body, 
and its tempering by long and painful discipline, 



504 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

under the guidance of religion, commerce, science, and 
education, the result has come forth in the shape of this 
English nation, which is to-day not the envy, so much as 
the pattern and friend of all surrounding peoples, and 
promises to continue for many ages the exemplar and 
director, if not the virtual ruler of the civilized world. 

We have on more than one occasion alluded to the secret 
of the greatness of the English race — namely : the com- 
plexity of its origin. It is inconceivable that any one of 
the races which have contributed towards the formation of 
this people could ever of itself have attained to this great- 
ness — let the time given be however prolonged, and the 
circumstances however propitious. The best proof of this 
is the actual performances of unmixed races. The Saxon, 
wanting in vivacity, has here been supplemented by the 
excitable and imaginative Celt ; and the Celt, fitful, 
incautious, irascible, believing in the unseen, often, while 
" building castles in the air," neglecting what lay in 
reality at his feet, has been brought under method and 
order by the infusion of the deliberate, " practical," and 
impassible qualities of the Teuton. 

The English people by this admixture are possessed of 
all the attributes which are required for government — 
science, religion, the prosecution of trade, and the exten- 
sion of empire. The love and practice of liberty — a liberty 
which prohibits lawlessness — exist nowhere, as the normal 
condition of the people, as they do in England. Religion 
goes forth to subdue the superstitions and idolatries of the 
world from no country as it does from Britain and the 
United States. The industrial arts, practical science, the 
enterprises of commerce, are by no other people pursued 
with such absorbing delight, and unfailing success. 

If we look to the relative power, fame, and distinction of 
Lhe British people— the wide reach of their dominion — 



CONCLUSION. 505 

(though their home is but this small island of the West) 
the solidity and moral influence of their character, and the 
prodigious wealth of their resources, we naturally feel an 
inward exultation, which requires for its moderation the 
memory of other illustrious nations which from being high 
and commanding have long ago perished out of sight ; and 
are legitimately proud of belonging to a country which has 
h>een the cradle and the home of so mighty and peerless a 
race — a race which Milton has aptly described in his 
Areopagitica as " not slow and dull, but of a quick, 
ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and 
sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point 
the highest that human capacity can soar to," etc. 

The doctrine of our essay being, that a good propor- 
tion, probably the larger part, of our nation is of Celtic 
blood, we are here supplied with a new ground of alliance 
and friendship with our distinguished neighbours of 
France, who are almost entirely Celtic in blood, although 
not in language. The policy of less enlightened times 
produced between us and that great nation sentiments of 
antipathy not in keeping either with our mutual interests, 
or ancient race relations. France has had her times of 
error and false ambition : she has had rulers and leaders 
whose trade was revolution, and whose instruments were 
rapine and blood. But she is now, we trust, taking the 
road of peace, and, under better counsel, aims at husband- 
ing her great resources, becoming our rival, not in the 
barbaric pursuit of arms, but in the arts of industry, the 
creation of wealth, the culture of mind, and the guidance of 
nations. 1 The Celtic race in Britain should learn to look 

1 This was written in 1868, when the Second Empire had succeeded 
in producing at least the appearance of social repose, and laying the 
basis of commercial prosperity. But since that time another great 
change has come over France. A Republic has replaced the Empire. 



506 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

with new interest on France in this her time of regenera- 
tion, and especially on that western corner of France, 
Brittany, where the old decaying language is lingering, an 
object of admiration to the antiquary and linguist, but a 
serious impediment to the people's progress, and where the 
Celt is seen in his integrity quite as much as in the moun- 
tains of Merionethshire, or the Vale of Teivy, while in the 
one like the other of these regions, he has enjoyed the 
advantage of a slight commingling with the Teuton, which 
he had lacked in the South and West of Ireland. 

The student of history, and the ethnologist, are begin- 
ning to view with increasing interest that remnant of the 
old race and language of Britain still found in the Princi- 
pality of Wales, and a feeling of reciprocation is growing 
in the Principality. These pages develop one chief reason 
of this. The fundamental rule of science, whether in 
history or elsewhere, is not what has been believed, but 
what is true. The inquiry into what is true, on the present 
subject, discovers a strong link of relationship between the 
Cymry and the English — a link of relationship, indeed, 
made doubly strong by the entrance on a scale of magni- 
tude hitherto but slightly recognised, of Cymric blood into 
the people of England, and also, on a smaller scale, of 
English blood into the inhabitants of Wales. This being 
the case, let us ask what sentiments, on this ground of 

The Franco-Prussian war, unhappily provoked by Napoleon, in a few 
months ended in the destruction of a great army, and the humiliation of 
France. But peaceful relations with Britain have not been disturbed ; 
the self-renovating power of the country is again receiving a wonderful 
display; and soon France will be more powerful and prosperous than 
ever. It is only to be feared that the sore produced by defeat will go 
on festering, and that the spirit of revenge will, sooner or later, bring 
on another, and perhaps greater, calamity. The war demon is abroad, 
once more, among the nations, usurping for barbaric use the skill of art 
ami the discoveries of science, and leading thoughtful men to enquire 
what is meant by our boasted modern civilization. 



THE MODERN WELSH. 507 

ethnological relationship alone, these two classes of the 
Queen's subjects ought to cherish towards each other ? If 
considerations of race can be allowed to sway at all in the 
guidance of feeling between communities, they can be so 
allowed, and are trebly meritorious, when, as in the present 
case, the feeling generated is conducive to public order and 
the strength of the empire. We see no reason whatever 
for the cultivation of a narrow feeling of nationality on the 
part of the "Welsh. Its root is ignorance, and its fruit dis- 
advantage. Estrangement between two peoples under one 
rule helps only to starve the weaker. The Scotch have 
had sufficient perspicacity to recognise their own predica- 
ment, and profit from a rational course of conduct. Ethno- 
logically, the pure Irish of the South and West do not 
occupy the same parallel. The Welsh of Wales — who, if our 
survey in the preceding pages be accurate, are now the most 
prominent and faithful representatives of the old Cymry 
who contributed the chief materials at least for the founda- 
tion of the English nation, and who, therefore, are entitled 
to see in that nation a near relation — are not so prompt in 
recognising their consanguinity, and claiming the advan- 
tages belonging to it as they ought to be. 

Instead of seeking under the guidance of a few mistaken 
zealots to establish an exceptional state of things on their 
own behalf in Wales — a permanent wall of separation in 
language, and the revival of sore memories — they will do 
wisely to further the process of coalescence, and claim, not 
the title of ancient possessors merely of the soil of Britain, 
but, with a nobler and more profitable audacity, property 
in the greater part of the present British people! The 
foundation of this great national superstructure was verily 
laid by them : the ground colour in the texture belongs to 
them. If in suffering the lopping off of some branches of 
their national vine, they have only aided its propagation 



508 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

in more fruitful soil, why should they not rejoice r If they 
nave lost the greater part of their ancient territories — over 
which they generally managed so heartily to quarrel — 
they have the consolation of having, in that very process 
contributed to constitute the nation which now owns and 
rules those territories ; for without the Celtic ingredient 
the British race could not have had existence. Language 
is not a differencing attribute of nations. To consider 
language the main characteristic, and especially to deem 
all beyond the circle of its use as of another race, were 
wilfully to ignore the truth of fact, and adopt an absurd 
hypothesis. The French of to-day are not the less Celts 
because they happen to speak a modified Latin ; nor are 
the French-speaking Teutons of Canada the less Teutons 
for their French articulations ; nor, indeed, are the negroes 
of the United States the less negroes because they speak a 
kind of English. In like manner the blood of Anglo- 
Saxons, Danes, and Normans flowing' in the veins of 
Scotch, Ulster Irish, and Welsh, is not the less 'Teutonic 
because it happens not to be accompanied in every case by 
the tones of the respective languages once belonging to it ; 
nor is the ancient Cymric blood now flowing in English 
veins the less Cymric although the persons owning it speak 
the English language. There is much more Cymric blood 
in England this day than in AVales, despite the fact that 
more Welsh is articulated in Cardiganshire than in all 
England together. Language is not by itself an index to 
race. 

No valid reason exists, accordingly, why the Welsh 
should not feel that they and the English are ethnologi- 
cally one people ; and it is better they should share in the 
honour and dignity, the intelligence and enterprise of 
England, than rest contented with the obscurity which 
blind adherence to antiquated customs, and to a speech 



PROGRESS IN WALES. 509. 

which can never become the vehicle of science or com- 
merce, must entail upon them. The Welsh, like the 
Scotch, should aspire to be in intelligence, enterprise,, 
culture, all that the English are, feeling that, 

" Frei athmen ist das Leben nicht." 

Merely to enjoy freedom is not to reach the highest ends 
of national, any more than individual, life. Let the earnest 
life of England — its strong steady aim at the high and 
excellent, pulsate through all Wales, and the highest 
models in thought, art, character, be emulated ; let the 
English language, which is destined soon to " make the 
whole world kin," and which is the only medium for the 
introduction into Wales of all the intellectual life and 
civilization of England — without prejudice to the Welsh 
as long as the popular instinct cleave to its use — be diffused 
far and wide among the people. Let education — the 
most urgent need of Wales to-day — the best, the highest 
education, be promoted both by the zeal of the people, and 
by the just and paternal care and liberality of the Govern- 
ment — care and liberality which up to the present time 
have been almost exclusively reserved for other parts, not 
more loyal, not more needy, of the empire. 1 (See Append. C.) 

1 We believe that this would be a better course for Welshmen to 
pursue than follow the counsels often given them at some of their 
popular quasi-literary gatherings. Not a few people still survive who 
foster a tendency to estrangement rather than coalescence between the 
Welsh and the English, and generate a spirit which in essence is not 
dissimilar to the Hibernic furor, though free from its disloyalty. 
Efforts are made to maintain a clannish isolation, which, if left to the 
arbitrament of the natural course of things, would soon cease to be. 
The sensitiveness displayed under public criticism betrays a conscious- 
ness of weakness in the case, and that the critics are partly right. At 
the same time these labours of a few to move back the dial of progress 
in Wales, though it demonstrates the truth of Mr. Arnold's finding — 
that the Celt is capable of resolutely disbelieving the reality of fact — 



510 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

This subject should awaken certain wholesome reflections 
in that portion of the English mind which, through want 
of thought or want of information concerning its own 
ethnical antecedents, delights to consider itself par excel- 
lence, Saxon, as opposed to Ancient British — Teutonic, as 
opposed to Celtic. It is owing to this want of reflection 
that we so often hear of the wondrous achievements of the 
"Anglo-Saxon" in legislation, science, arms — of the 
sagacity, enterprise, practical aptitudes, &c, of the "Anglo- 
Saxon " — of the destiny of the world to become subject to 
the leadership and rule of the "Anglo-Saxon " — and divers 
other things of like nature. 

A few years ago a journal called The Anglo-Saxon, 
destined not long to live, was brought into existence, 
charged with the duty of sounding abroad these sentiments, 
and doubtless had some share in establishing wrong 
notions in the public mind respecting the purely Anglo- 
Saxon descent of the English people and languag'e. It 
was conceived and executed in the poetic and rhetorical 
style, much like orations at Welsh Eisteddfods, and, there- 
fore, obtained no hold on the minds of scientific men. 
*' The editors hoisted the standard of the race on the 
first day of the year one thousand eight hundred and 
forty-nine (p. 5), and an Anglo-Saxon messenger was 
forwarded by rail and steam to every corner of the 
globe recognised as an Anglo-Saxon settlement." Of 
course they were not oblivious of the saying of Gregory, 
Non Angli sed Angela when " the youthful Angli, 1 

arc virtuous compared with the headlong folly, and bluruU-ring use of 
means to an end, displayed at present 1 by"] enian li turbers of 

the 1 ace 'in Ireland. The two things arc similar only as mistaken race 
aspirations. The former co-exists with 1 tyalty— the latter 1. conspiring 
and traitorous. 

1 Most probably British children sent as slaves to the K : . n market 
by our Anglo-Saxon Forefathers. 



" ANGLO-SAXON " FANATICISM. 5 1 1 

early leaflets of the mighty Anglo-Saxon branch, drew 
all the eyes of Rome to their angelic forms." The 
editors were not quite sure whether " the good old man, 
like the High Priest of old, spoke, not of himself, but 
by the spirit of prophecy ; but whether inspired or not, the 
saying has not fallen to the ground. From that time for- 
ward the tree of the Anglo-Saxon race took root and 
flourished ; for a thousand years the mighty trunk grew 
and shot upwards, rude and rugged perhaps in appearance, 
and then it spread forth its branches to the uttermost ends 
of the earth, affording shelter, and protection, and support 
to the other families and less favoured races of man- 
kind. The Anglo-Saxons have been accomplishing their 
destiny. . . . The whole earth may be called the 
fatherland of the Anglo-Saxon race,'' &c. (p. 4). A map 
was given in which the whole of North America, the whole 
of Hindostan, the whole of New Holland, was coloured as 
peopled by " the Anglo-Saxon race." 

The doctrine taught concerning the Britons, as a matter 
of consistency, was the traditional one : " When the Saxons 
were the conquerors, they became so entirely masters 
and possessors of the land, that the ancient inhabitants 
were either banished to the mountains [the usual " of 
Wales" is omitted], or perished by the sword." (p. 104). 
By one means or other we got rid of them entirely. This 
was bad enough as history. When speaking of the English 
language, the Anglo-Saxon was not over-learned, for it 
added on the same page: "If we trace it (the English) from 
its primitive, oral, and extemporaneous state, to the age of 
Alfred, when it assumed a written form, and from Alfred 
through Wickliffe and Chaucer to the reign of Elizabeth, 
when it put on a more classic and elegant dress, and even 
from Elizabeth to the present time, notwithstanding the 
corruptions which commerce or science, affectation or 



512 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

vanity, have introduced, the English language — simple,, 
earnest, homely, expressive, is still substantially the same." 
This is certainly bold, especially when we remember that 
our present English, though more than ever "expressive," 
is not to half its extent derived from Anglo-Saxon, and 
that in grammatical inflection and construction it exhibits 
an almost total contrast to the language of Alfred. As to 
its being " simple," every Linguist will testify that there 
exists not in Europe or the world so complex and hetero- 
geneous a tongue. 

The Anglo-Saxony in truth, was simply the representative 
of a species of fanaticism, and, like all such productions,, 
disdained the examination of facts, and the guidance of 
scientific induction. Its career, therefore, though doubtless 
"brilliant," was deservedly brief. 

Now whatever may be thought of the existence in times 
past, and in other lands, of communities which might be- 
correctly denominated Anglo-Saxon, it is manifest that in 
Britain no such community has been known since the 
period of the so-called Heptarchy. The " Saxon " and 
" Anglo-Saxon " people of England have, from the first 
establishment of their rule in this land, been blending 
themselves inextricably with the old British race, and have 
won many of their most valuable mental and moral 
characteristics through this very circumstance. The 
people of England to-day are possibly quite as little 
Anglo-Saxon as their speech. As to America, it is obvious 
that the great branch of the "Anglo-Saxon" race on that 
continent is still less Anglo-Saxon than their brethren of 
England. The first colonizers of North America were of 
the same ethnic mixture with our own ancestors; but for a 
hundred years and more the American people have been 
constantly receiving accessions of blood from all the nations 
of Europe — some from Asia and Africa, and some from the 



"ANGLO-SAXONS" NON-EXISTENT. 513 

aborigines of America itself. They have already assumed 
a character in points strikingly differing from the parent 
stock in Britain, and in all these points they present a 
tendency to diverge from the " Saxon " type. It is a nice 
question, and one for which physiological science is 
scarcely as yet ripe, to determine how much of this 
differentia is owing to climate, food, and mode of life ; but 
it is not too much to say, that one of its chief causes is 
admixture of races. It is well that that great community, 
the inhabitants of the United States, should be called 
"Americans," for they are not English, and much less 
Anglo-Saxon in type. The study of anthropology and 
ethnology — young in England, has scarcely had its 
birth in America, but when it wakens and receives atten- 
tion there, free from the partialities of race prejudice, and 
under guidance of that love of scientific truth which dis- 
tinguishes Americans of culture, we shall hear no more of 
the " great Anglo-Saxon race " in America. 

In fine, this people of England, so strong in mind, will, 
and hand, must learn to consider itself as something else 
than Anglo-Saxon ; for this it cannot in strictness bo 
called, whatever style of loose nomenclature its humour 
may choose to adopt. Largely charged with ancient 
British blood, and formed on British ground, its proper 
designation is BRITISH. It is not Teuton, although it 
contains much Teutonic blood ; it is not Celtic, although it 
contains much Celtic blood. It is neither Anglican, Saxon, 
nor Cymri, but all these and more blended together. If it 
is more Teuton than Celtic, more Germanic than British, 
let proof thereof be given. Ever since the time of Gildas, 
the plea has been desultorily put in, and solely upon his 
worthless authority ; but the argument and the evidence 
have never been offered, and probably will long delay their 
appearance. 

LL 



APPENDIX A 



Welsh Words Derived from the Latin and Other 

Languages. 

The Welsh Orthography is that of Modern Welsh. 



Welsh. 


English. 


Immed. Derivation and Cognates 


Achos, 


Cause, 


Lat. causa. 


Actau, 


Acts, 




, ago, actum. 


A dail, 


Building, 




, cedilis. 


Additrn, 


Ornament, 




, ad-orno. 


Addurno, 


Adorn 




, id. 


Addysgu, 


Instruct, 




, ad-disco ; Gr. Si5a<rK«. 


Adferu 


Restore, 




, ad-fero. 


Adnod, 


Verse, 




, ad-nota. 


Ais, asen, 


A rib, 




, assis. 


Allt, gallt, 


Hill, 




, altus. (Ebel.) 


Amddiffyn, 


Defend, 




, defendo. 


Ami, 


Numerous, 




, amplus. 


Ammhosibl, 


Impossible, 


E 


iglish ; Lat. impossibilis. 


Angor, 


Anchor, 


L 


at. anchora ; Gr. dyKvpa. 


Anifail, 


Animal, 


i 


, animale. 


Anrlicithio, 


Devastate, 


(S 


ee " rhaith") 


Antur, 


Venture, 


Fi 


: aventurer. 


Anwiredd, 


Falsehood, 


(S 


ee "gwir") 


Appivyntio, 


Appoint, 


F 


\ appoint cr. 



1 A few words added on the authority of Ebel {Celtic Studies — Prof. 
Sullivan's Ed.) are marked by the learned author's name. 

L2 



5i6 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. English. Immcd. Derivations and Cognates. 

Aradr, Plough, Lat. aratrum ; Gr. dporpov. Name 

of instrument, is clearly from Lat., but word for " act of ploughing " 
belongs as clearly to Celtic, Gothic, Greek, &c. W. aru, to plough 
Gael, ay, to plough ; Corn, aras ; A.-Sax. crian, to plough ; Gr. dpSco 



Sec. Eng 


. ear (of corn), earth 


; W. dr, daear (earth) ; A.-Sax. card 


Germ, era 


e ; &.c. See " aru," 


Append. B. 


Arch, 


Chest, 


Lat 


. area ; Fr. arche. 


Araeth, 


Oration, 


,, 


oratio, oro ; Ir. oraid. 


Arf, 


Weapon, 


,, 


arma; A.-Sax. earm. 


Argyhoeddi, 


Convince, 


,, 


arguo. 


Avian, 


Silver, 


,, 


argentum ; Ir. airgiod. 


Arth, 


A bear, 


,, 


ursa. 


Asen, 


An ass, 


,, 


asinus. 


Assio, 


Solder. 


,, 


ad-suo. 


A stud, 


Attentive, 


,, 


studio. 


Astudio, 


To study, 


,, 


id. 


Asyn, 


Ass, 


,, 


asinus. Ebel. 


Athrist, 


Sad, 


,, 


tristis. 


Astell, 


A board, 


,, 


assula. 


Aur, 


Gold, 


,, 


aurum ; Ir. or. 


Aivch, 


Edge, 


5> 


acies. 


A wdl, 


An ode, 


,, 


oda. 


A wdwr, 


Author, 


Fr. 


auteur ; Lat. auctor. 


Awdurdod, 


Authority, 


Lat 


. auctoritas. 


Awgrym, 


A sign, 


,, 


augurium. 


A iast, 


August, 


,, 


Augusti (mensis). 


A wydd, 


Desire, 


» 


avidus. 


Bacsen, 


Foot-covering, 




baxea. 


Bagl, 


A crutch, 


,, 


baculum. 


Barf, 


Beard, 


,, 


barba (Ebel) ; but 


found in 


Corn, and Arm., and I 


•bit in Ir. All, including Lat 


probably 


derived from a common source. 




Baron, 


Lat 


(late) baro ; or Fr. baron. 


Bathu, 


To coin, 


,, 


batuo. 


Bedydd, 


Baptism, 


,, 


: G r. . «n 




Baptize, 


,, 


id. 


Bendigaid, 


Blessed, 


,, 


bencdictus. 


Bendith, 


Blessing, 


,, 


benedictio. 


Bendithio, 


Bless, 


>> 


benedico, benedL . 


Benthyg, 


Loan, 


„ 


bencfactum, facio. 




Woman, 


•i 


fojmina ; but, Gael. 



APPENDIX A. 



517 



Welsh. 

Berf, 

Berfa, 

Berwi, 

Bilwg, 

Bock, 

Belli, 

Bord, 

Boreu, 

Braich, 
Brawd, 
Brefu, 
Brwmstan, 

Budr, 

Bugail, 

Bresych, 

Bivrdais, 

Bwrdd, 

Bwysi-fil, 



English. 
Verb, 
Barrow, 
To boil, 
Bill-hook, 
Cheek, 
Bolt, 
Table, 
Morning, 

Arm, 
Brother 
To low, 
Brimstone, 

Filthy, 

Shepherd, 

Pot-herbs, 

Burgess, 

Board, table 

Beast, 



Immcd. Derivations and Cognates. 
Lat. verbum. 
A.-Sax. berewe. 
Lat. ferveo ; Gael, bruich. 
English. 
Lat. bucca. 
English. 

A.-Sax. (See " bwrdd.") 
Gr. irpai in the morning ; A.-Sax. 

morne, morgan; Ger. Morgen. 
hat. brachium. 
A.-Sax. brother ; Lat. frater. 
Lat. fremo ; Gr. fip£u.u\ 
English. A.-Sax. bryne, a burning 

and stan, a stone. 
Lat. puter, putris. 



Celtic for animal. 
&c."— Ebel. 
By stack, Steer, 



,, brassica. 
English. A.-Sax. burgh. 
A.-Sax. bord, a plank. 
Lat. bestia. Last syll. from mil, 
'Compounded like the German Alaulthier, 

Lat. bestia. 



Cadair, Chair, Lat. cathedra ; Gr. KadeSpa. 

Capten, Captain, Fr. capitaine ; Lat. caput. 

Welsh spelling cadben, as if from cad, battle, and pen, a chi 

fanciful adaptation. 



The 
is a 



Cadwyn, 

Caeth, 
Caeikiwed, 

Calan, 

Calenig, 

Calch, 

Caled, 

Call, 

Camp, 



Chain, 

Captive, 
Captivity, 



Lat. catena. 

„ captus. — Ebel. The root is in 
Celtic, as, W. cae enclosed field, 



can, to shut up ; Corn, caid, cap- 
tive; Arm. kez; id. 

First dayof month, As calan Mai, calangauaf, dyJJ, 
calan ; Lat. calendar. 

New year's gift, id. 

Lime (chalk), Lat. calx. 

Hard, ,, calleo, callus. 

Wise, ,, callidus. 

Exploit, ,, campus (Martius), Roman 

place of games. 



5U 



IHE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. English. Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 

Canu, To sing, Lat. cano. But both possibly from 

a common etymon. 
Cantwr, Singer, ,, cantator. 

Cancr, Cancer, ,, cancer. 

Cant, Hundred, ,, centum. But the hund, in 

" hundred " (from A.-Sax. hund, ioo) and Lat. centum, W. cant, 

Gael, cend, &c, are all from one etymon, the strong breathing 

represented in one by h, in the other by c. 
Canwriad, Centurion, Lat. centurio. 

Canwyll, Candle, ,, candela. 

Car char, Prison, ,, career. The direct descent 

of the whole, carcliav, is doubtless from Lat., but car or caer is 

common Celtic, as cacr, a place of defence. The Lat. may be but 

a reduplication of the same archaic word, car-cer. 
Cardod, An alms, Lat. caritas. But the etymon, car, 

is common to Celtic, as W. car, a friend ; cariad, love, Gael, car, 

car aid. 



Carrai, 




Thong (of s 


hoe), 


Fr. 


courroie, Lat. corrigia. 


Canu, 




Stag, 




Lat 


. cervus. 


Castell, 




Castle, 




,, 


castellum. 


Cdth, 




Cat, 




,, 


(late) cattus. — Ebel. 


Cawl, 




Broth, 




,, 


caulis (herbs). 


Ceulad, 




Runnet, 




,, 


ccagulo. 


Cawn, 




Reed-grass, 




,, 


canna. 


Caws, 




Cheese, 




" 


caseus, or A.-Sax. cesc ; Germ- 
Kiise. 


Cebystr, 




Halter, 




,, 


capistrum. 


Cedrwydd, 




Cedar, 




,, 


cedrus. 


Ccgin, 




Kitchen, 




,, 


coquina, coquo. 


Cengl, or Cingcl, 


Girth, 




,, 


cingula, cingo. 


Cerwyn, 




Mash-tub, 




" 


car(o)enum, instead of car- 
(w)enaria. — Ebel. 


Cessail, 




Armpit, 




Fr. 


gousscl, Lat. axilla. 


Cest, 




Paunch, 




Lat 


. cista ; Gael, cistc, likewise 
borrowed. 


Cestog, 




Large-bellied, 


,, 


id. 


Chwefror, 




February, 




,, 


Februarii (mensis). 


Cingel, 




Girth, 




Fr. 


sangle, from Lat. cingo. 


Ciniaw, 




Dinner, 




Lat 


coma. 


Cist, as cist 


-faen, 


Sepulchral chest, 


,, 


id. 


Ciwdawd, 




Tribe, clan, 






civitas. — Ebel. 


Claddu, 




To bury, 




,. 


claudo, to shut up, inclose. 





APPENDIX A. 519 


Welsh. 


English. 




Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 


Clawdd, 


A ditch, 




Lat. id. 


Cloddio, 


To dig, 




„ id. 


Claer and clir, 


Clear, 




„ clarus. 


Cleddyf, 


Sword, 




,, gladius, Fr. glaive. 


Cler, as " Gwyr cl 


er," literati, 




Lat. clerus ; Gr. K\i)pos 


Clo, 


A lock, 




„ clavis, claudo, Gr. K\eLw. 


Cloi, 


To lock, 




The same elements of the word, 


c, or k, and I, 


transposed, are found in the A.-Sax. loc, a lock, locian, 


to lock. The 


: Germ. Schloss, 


has the Latin order. 


Clos, 


A yard, 




Lat. claudo. 


Cock, 


Red, 




,, coccum. 


Codwm, 


A fall, 




,, cado. 


Coeth, 


Purified, 




,, coquo, coctus. 


Cog, 


A cook, 




„ id. 


Cogail, 


Truncheon, staff. 


, ,, (late) conucula — Ebel. 


Cogi, 


To cook, 




,, coquo. 


Coleddu, 


To cherish, 




,, colo. 


Colofn, 


Column, 




,, columna. 


Colomen, 


Dove, 




,, columba; Fr. colomb. 


Condemnio, 


To condemn, 




„ con-damno. 


Congl, 


Corner, 




,, angulus. 


Coron, 


Crown, 




,, corona; Germ. Krone. See 
"cor,'" Append. B. 


Corph, 


Body, 




,, corpus. 


Cory 11, 


Top of the he 


ad, 


,, corona. 


Credo, 


Belief, 




,, credo. 


Credu, 


To believe, 




„ id. 


Crefft, 


A trade, 




Eng. craft ; A.-Sax. craeft. The 



form crefft is borrowed ; but the Celtic, like the Teutonic tongues, 
have the etymon. Craeft, craft, and crefft alike indicate skill, 
manual and mental, but the former is the first and literal meaning 
— skill in using the hand, cutting, carving. Welsh crafu, cerfio, to 
scratch, carve. Ir. sgrabam ; Gael, grabhal, to carve ; Arm. crava ; 
Corn, gravio ; vide " argraph" and "crafu," Append. B. 



Creadur, 


Creature, 


Creu, 


Create, 


Creawdwr, 


Creator, 


Crefydd (cred- 




ffydd) 


Religion, 


Croesaw, 


To welcome. 


Croes-ffordd, 


Cross-road, 



Lat 



creatura, creo. 

creo. 

creator. 



,, credo and fides. 
,, recipio. 

„ crux ; and A.-Sax, ford, a 
shallow to cross a river, then any road 



520 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 




English. 


Immcd. Derivations and Cognates. 


Crys, 




Shirt, 


Fr. crcseau. 


Cufydd, 




Cubit, 


Lat. cubitus. 


Cur, 




Care, pain, 


,, cura. 


Cwccwll, 




Cowl, 


,, cucullus. " According to 


Diefenbach, 


the Latin word had already been borrowed from the 


Celtic' 


— Ebel. 




Cwiryl, 




Quarrel, 


,, querela. In Pughe's Diet., 
but scarcely naturalized in W. 


Cwestiwn, 




Question, 


From the English ; scarcely natu- 
ralized in\V., but in common use. 


Cwlltwv, 




Coulter, 


Lat. culter, colo. 


Cwnseri, 




To conjure, 


,, conjuro. 


Cwmmwl, 




Cloud, 


,, cumulus. 


Cwfw, 




Ale, 


,, cervisia. 


Cwyr, 




Wax, 


,, cera ; Gael, ceir, also bor- 


Cybydd, 




Miser, 


,, cupidus, cupio. [rowed. 


Cyffes, 




Confession 


,, confessio. 


Cyllell, 




Knife, 


,, cultellus, dim. of culter. 


Cymmar, 




Partner, 


,, corn-par. 


Cymharu, 




To compare, 


,, comparo. 


Cymmell, 




To compel, 


,, compello. 


Cymmwys, 




Suitable, 


,, commodus. 


Cymmysg, 




Mixed, 


,, commisceo. See " Mysg." 


Cyudyn, 




Stubborn, 


,, contendo. 


Cynnwrf 




Disturbance, 


,, con-turba. But root of turba 


[cyd and tor/), 




is frequent in the Celtic : 


W. tor, 


a he 


ap, tyrru, to crowd, 


tyrfa, a multitude (same as Lat. 


turba), 


Gae 


, torr, to heap up, &c. 


Cystal, ) 
Cystadl, ) 




As good, equal, 


Lat. constatus. 


Cysson, 




Agreeing, 


,, con-sono. But see "swn" 






consonant, 


.," in Append. B. 


Cyssyl, 




Council, 


„ concilium, con-calo. 


Cyssylltu, 




To join, 


,, con-solido, or sulo. 


Cysludd, 




Affliction, 


,, castigo. 


Da grau, 




Tears, 


Gr. Sdupva. 


Damnio, 




Condemn, 


Lat. damno. 


Dannod, 




To cast in the 

teeth, 


,, dens. 


Dant, 




Tooth, 


Fr. dent ; Lat. dens-tis. 


DJs, 




Mow or stack, 


„ tas. 





APPENDIX A. 521 


Welsh. 


English. 


Immcd. Derivations and Cognates. 


Dawn, 


A gift, 


Lat. dono, donum. 


Deddf, 


Law, 


,, datum. 


Dcdwydd, 


Happy, 


Fr. deduit. 


Dewin, 


Wizard, 


Lat. divino. 


Diafol, 


Devil, 


,, diabolus ; Gr. ojc£/3oAos. 


Dibynu, 


Depend, 


,, dependo. 


Difyr, 


Amusing, 


,, diverto. 


Difyru, 


To divert, 


„ id. 


D iffr wy th, 


Fruitless, 


,, de-fructus. 


Diffyg, 


Defect, 


,, de-fectus, deficio. 


Diffyn, 


Defend, 


,, de-fendo. 


Dileu. 


Wipe out, 


„ deleo. 


Diliw, 


Deluge, 


,, diluvium. 


Diuiai, 


Half-penny, 


,, dimidium. 


Diserth, 


Desert, 


,, deserta. 


Disgyn, 


Descend, 


,, descendo. 


Diwrnod, 


Day, 


,, diurnum. 


Doctor, 


Doctor, 


English ; Lat. doctor. 


Doeth, 


Wise, 


Lat. doctus, doceo. 


Dolur, 


Pain, 


Fr. douleur ; Lat. dolor. The 


orthography and pronunciation of dolur favour its reception through 


the Norm.- 


French. 




Dosparth, 


A section, 


Lat. dis-partio, pars. 


Dosparthu, 


To classify, 


,, id. 


Draig, 


Dragon, 


,, draco. 


Dur, 


Steel, 


,, durus (hard). 


Dwbl, 


Double, 


English, from Lat. duplex. 


Dwl, 


Dull, 


,, ,, A. -Sax. dol. 


Dydd, 


Day, 


Lat. dies ; A.-Sax. daeg. 


Dylifo, 


To flow, 


,, diluvio. 


Dysgl, 


A dish, 


,, discus ; Gr. 5ur/cos, 


Dysgu, 


To learn, to teach ,, disco; Gr. 5t5d<r/cw. 


Dysgedig, 


Learned, 


„ id. 


Dystryw, 


Destruction, 


,, destruo. 


Dystrywio, 


Destroy, 


„ id. 


Ebol, 


Colt, 


,, pullus ; Gr. -rrCiKos. 


Ebrill, 


April, 


,, Aprilis (mensis). 


Effaith, 


Effect, 


Prob. borrowed from English ; 
Lat. efficio, effectus. 


Efyll, 


Twins, 


Lat. gemellus. 


Eglur, 


Clear, 


,, clarus. 


Eigion, 


Ocean, 


,, oceanus; Gr. &Keav6s. 



522 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 


English . 




. Amoment, "glance 

' eiliad \ of an eye." "She 

j gave strange eye- 


Eiliad, as ' 


llygad," 




N liads."— Sliakcsp. 


Eistedd, 


Sit, ] 


Elfen, 


Element, 


Eli, 


Ointment, 


Elusen, 


An alms. 


Erthygl, 


Article, ] 


Esgus, 


Excuse, 


Esgyd, 


A shoe, j 


Esponiad, 


Exposition, 


Esponio, 


To expound, 


Est ran, 


Stranger, 


Estyn, 


To extend, 


Esgyn, 


To ascend, 


Eizyttys, 


Will, 



Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 

> Fr. oeillade, a glance. 

Lat. assideo. 

,, elementum. 

,, oleum ; Gr. dXei/xfia. 

,, eleemosyna; Gr. eKe-qixoavvrj. 
English, from Lat. articulus. 

,, ,, ,, excuse 
A. -Sax. gesceod, shod, from sceo, 

shoe ; Germ. Schuh. 
Lat. expositio, ex-pono. 

,, expono. 

,, extraneus. 

,, extendo. 

,, ascendo. 
A. -Sax. willice, 
will : Lat. 



■a- ill a, 



Ffaelu, 



To fail, 



Ffagl, Torch, 

Ffair, A fair, 

festival), and this from 
forum (market-place). 



Lat. 



willingly 
voluntas. 

English; A. -Sax. feallan, to fail; 

Germ. feJilen. 
Lat. facula. 

English. Germ. Fcicr (holiday, 
ferise (Roman holidays), or from 



Ffaith, 


A fact, 




Lat. factum, facio. 


Ffald, 


A fold, 




A.-Sax.M/. 


Ffals, 


Cunning, 




English, false ; Lat. fallo, falsus. 


Ffenestr, 


Window, 




Lat. fenestra. 


Ffcnigl, 


Fennel, 




,, fceniculum — Ebel. 


Fferm, 


A farm, 




English. A. -Sax. feorm, food, 




support- 


-hence the land which yielded support. 


Ffarmwr, 


Farmer, 




English. 


Ffldm. 


Flame, 




Lat. flamma. 


Ffiangell, 


Scourge, 




,, flagello ; Germ. Flegel, whence 
Engl, flail. 


F/oi, 


To flee. 




„ fugio. 


F/61, 


Foolish, 


fool, 


Fr. /<>/, from late Latin, follis, a 



wind-bag, but this perhaps derived from old Celtic root. It is in 

Corn, and Arm. 
F/orch, Fork, English. Lat. furca. 

Ffordd, Way, road, A.- Sax. ford, a shallow in a 

stream, a ford. 



APPENDIX A. 



523 



[mined. Derivations and Cognates. 
Engl. ; from late Lat. foresta. 
Lat. fortuna. 

„ fossa, fodio. 
Fr.frein; Lat. fraenum. 
English. Lat. fructus. 
Lat. figura. 

Fr. fiimer, to smoke ; Lat. fuma- 
Lat. forma. [rium. 

,, formo. 

,, firmamentum. 
A.-Sax. feordhling, from feordha, a 
Lat. fustis. [fourth. 

Fr. foume, Lat. furnus. 
Lat. fons ; late Latin, fontana. 

„ firmus. 

,, capra. 
A.-Sax. geard ; Germ. Garten. 
id. 

English, from Lat. gemma. 
A,-Sax. geld; Germ. Geld. 
English, from Lat. honestus. 
See " aitr." 

Lat. modus ; and W. gov, extreme. 
,, craticula. 
,, gradus. 

,, grammatica; Gr. ypd^/xa, 
From one etymon have sprung ypd/mfia, from ypdcpw, 
Welsh crafu, cerfio, Gael, grabbal, A.-Sax. craeft, also, perh. writan, 
to cut, write, Germ, schreiben, Schrift. The first part of the word 
"gram," therefore, may be considered pure Aryan. 



Welsh. 


English. 


Fforest, 


Forest, 


Ffortun, 


Fortune, 


Ffos, 


A ditch, 


Ffrwyn, 


Bridle, 


Ffrwyth, 


Fruit, 


Ffugyr 


Figure, 


Ffumev, 


Chimney, 


Ffurf, 


Form, 


Ffurfio, 


To shape, 


Ffurf a fen, 


Firmament 


Ffyrling, 


Farthing, 


Ffyst, 


Flail, 


Ffwm, 


Furnace, 


Ffynon, 


Fountain, 


Ffyrf, 


Firm, 


Gafr, 


A goat, 


Gardd, 


Garden, 


Garth, 


Inclosure, 


Gem, 


A gem, 


Golud, 


Wealth, 


Gonest, 


Honest 


Goreuro, 


To gild, 


Gormod, 


Excess, 


Grissill, 


Gridiron, 


Grddd, 


Degree, 


Grammadeg, 


Grammar, 


(writing). 


From one et) 



Grawn, 


Grapes, 


Lat. granum. 




Gronyn, 


A grain, 


,, granum. 




Gwdg, 


Empty, 


,, vacuus. 




Gwael, 


Vile, 


,, vilis. 




Gwain, 


Scabbard, 


Fr. gaine ; Lat. vagina. 




Gwal, 


A wall, 


Lat. vallum. Corn, gwal; 


Ir. gal 



and bala ; Germ. Wall; Sansc. valan. The form in modern High- 
land Gael, is balla and balladh, but that gwal, or wal, or val was the 
earliest adopted form is evident from the well-known instance 
Penfahel, mentioned by Bede as a Pictish name of a place at the 
head or end of the wall of Severus. Bede i. iz. 



524 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 


EnglisJi. 


Immcd. Derivations and Cognates. 


Gwastad, 


A plain, 


Lat. vasto, to waste, to level by 




cuttir 


g down trees, &c. A. -Sax. westan. 


Gwastraff, 


Waste, 


Lat. vasto, or A. -Sax. westan, to 


Gwastraffu, 


To waste, 


waste, and Welsh rhafu, to spread. 


Gweddw, 


Widow, 


Lat. vidua. 


Gwedyd, 


To speak, 


A. -Sax. cwedan. But conf. "gweyd," 
Append. B. 


Gwener fdydd), 


Friday, 


Lat. Veneris (dies). 


Gwenwyn, 


Poison, 


,, venenum. 


Givers, 


Verse, lesson, 


,, versus. 


Gwersyll, 


Camp, 


Fr. guerre, war, and selle, seat. 


Gwibcr, 


Viper,. 


Lat. vipera. 


Gwilio, 


To watch, 


,, vigilo. 


Gwin, 


Wine, 


,, vinum. 


Gwisg, 


Garment, 


,, vestis. 


Gwyrth, 


Miracle, 


,, virtus. 


Gwydr, 


Glass, 


,, vitrum. 


Gwyl, 


Festival 


,, vigil ; Fr. vcille. 


Gwyllt, 


Wild, 


A.- Sax. wild. 


Gwynt, 


Wind, 


Lat. ventus, or A. -Sax. wind. 


Gwyrdd, 


Green, 


,, viridis ; Gael, gonu ; A. -Sax. 
grene ; Germ, griin. 


Gwyryf, 


Virgin, 


„ virgo. 


Gwyrth, 


A miracle, 


,, virtus, power, strength. 


Gyrru, 


To drive, 


,, curro. 


II a! in, 


Spittle, 


,, saliva — E. 


Harnais, 


Harness, 


0. Fr. harnas, X. Fr. harnais. 


licit, 


Hat, 


A. -Sax. haet. 


Ileddyw, 


To-day, 


Lat. hodie. 


Helyg, 


Willow, 


,, salix ; Gael, seileach, fr. same. 


Hogi, 


Sharpen, 


,, acuo. 


Ilosan, 


Hose, 


,, A. -Sax. pi. Jiosan. 


1 /,.-.',". 


Late, 


,, sero, serus, late. 


Hynod, 


Notable, 


„ notus ; W. /;j, apt, g'ving 
emphasis. 


I a it, 


Jupiter, 


,, Jovis. 


dyddj 


Thur 


„ Jovis (dies). 


Liu, 


A yoke, 


n jugum. 


lonaivr, 


January, 


., Januarii (mensis). 


/ 


A Jew, 


.. Judaius; Gr. 'Ioi'Scuoj. 



APPENDIX A. 



525 



Welsh. English. Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 

Ienangc, Young, Lat. juvencus. 

Iwrch, Roebuck, ,, hircus. 



Llabyddio, To stone, 

Llaes, Loose, 

Llaeth, Milk, 

gen, ydXatcTos. Celtic 
genitive, are Gael, leig 
Eng. milk 



,, lapido. 

,, laxus. 

Fr. lait; Lat. lac-tis; Gr. yd\a, 

and Teutonic cognates with this Gr. 

to milk; A.-Sax., meolc; Germ. Milch; 

Prob. the Fr. lait, has descended from Belgic or Gallic. 



Ital. latte. 


All from Aryan : 


root. 




Llafur, 


Labour, 


Lat 


. labor. 


Lie, 


A place, 


Fr. 


lieu; Lat. locus. 


Lledr, 


Leather,, 


A.-: 


Sax. leder ; Germ. Leder. 


Lleidr, 


Thief, 


Lat 


. latro. 


Lleisw, 


Lye, 


?> 


lixivium; A.-Sax., laeg. 


LI eng, 


Legion. 


,, 


legio. 


Llesg, 


Faint, feeble, 


,, 


laxus. 


Llcw, 


Lion, 


,, 


leo. 


Lleuipard, 


Leopard, 


English. Lat, leo-pardus. 


Lleyg, 


Layman, 


Lat 


. lay. Comp. Germ. Lcitte. 


Llinell, 


A line, 


,, 


linea. See " llin," App. B. 


Llith, 


A lesson, 


,, 


litera. 


Llong, 


Ship, 


„ 


longa (navis). — Ebel. 


Llugorn, 


A lantern, 


,, 


lucerna.' — Ebel. See" Ihiserti." 


Llugorn m 


ay be from lluab, a 


. light, and Corn, horn, the material of 


which the 


instrument was made. 




Llun (dydd), 


Monday, 


Lat 


. luna (the moon). 


Llun, 


Figure, 


! „ 




Llunio, 


To shape, 


lineo, delinio, to portra}-. 


Llurig, 


Coat of mail, 


,, 


lorica. 


Llusern, 


Lantern, 


,, 


lucerna, lux. 


Llyfn, 


Smooth, 


,, 


lasvis ; Gr. Ae?os. 


Llyfr, 


Book, 


" 


liber. But conf. " llyfr." 
Append. B. 


Llynges, 


A fleet, 


,, 


longa (navis). 


Llythyr, 


A letter, 


,, 


litera. 


Llylhyrenog, 


Learned, 


,, 


id. 


Llythyraeth, 


Orthography, 


,, 


id. 


Llythyr en, 


Alphabetic letter, ,, 


id. 


Machlyd, 


Setting of sun 




occludo. 


Maer, 


Mayor, 


Fr. 


maire; Lat. major. 



526 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 


English. 


Magwr, 


A wall, 


Mai, 


May, 


Malais, 


Malice, 


Man eg, 


A glove, 


Mantais, 


Advantage, 


Mantell, 


Mantle, 


Marchnad, 


Market, 


Maten, 


A mat, 


Mawrth {dydd) 


Tuesday, 


Mawrth (mis), 


March, 


Meidr, 


Measure, 


Mcddwi, 


Get drunk, 


Meddyg, 


Physician, 


Medi, 


To reap, 


Medi (mis), 


September, 


Meistr, 


Master, 


Melldigo, 


To curse, 


Melldith, 


A curse, 


Melldiihio, 


To curse, 


Mclyn, 


Yellow, 


Memrwn, 


Parchment, 


Men, y fen, 


Waggon, the 


Mcrcher (dydd), 


Wednesday, 


Merthyr, 


Martyr, 


Mesnr, 


Measure, 


Mctel, 


Metal, 


Milwr, 


Soldier, 


Modd, 


Manner, 


Mocs, 


Behaviour, 


Moesol, 


Moral, 


Morthwyl, 


A hammer, 


yn, 


Virgin, 


Mud, 


Mute, 


Mur, 


Wall, 


Mwydo, 


Moisten, 


M\\lvr, 


Metre, 


My/yrio, 


Meditate, 


Mymryn, 


A particle, 




A monk, 


Mynachdy, 


Monastery, 



Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 
Lat. maceria. 

,, Maiae (mensis). 
English. Lat. malitia, malus. 
Fr. manique; Lat. manus, hand. 

,, a vantage. 
A. -Sax., maentel ; Germ. Mantel. 
English. Germ. Markt ; Lat. mer- 

cor, mercator. 
English. A. -Sax. meatte. 
Lat. Mars, Martis (dies). 
,, ,, ,, (mensis). 
,, metrum ; Gr. utrpov. 
Gr. ixedvu}. But conf. " medd. " 
Lat. medicus. [Append. B.] 

,, meto. 
,, id. 
English. Lat. magister. 
Lat. male-dico. 
,, male-dictum 
„ id. 

,, melinus ; Gr. firiXivos ; Ital. 
giallo, whence, yellow ; Germ. gelb. 
,, membrana. 
wain, A. -Sax., waen] Gael, feun, id. 
Lat. Mercurii (dies). 

,, martyrus; Gr. p.aprvp. 
English ; or Fr. niesurc. 
Lat. metallum ; Gr. ixiraWov. 
,, miles. 
,, modus. 
,, mos, moris. 
,, ,. moralis. 
,, martulus (martellus). — Ebel. 
,, virgo, vir-ginis. 
,, mutus; Fr. mutt. 
,, murus. 
,, madeo. 
English; or Fr. mitre. 
Lat. memoro. 
,, minima res. 
,, monachus ; Gr. ftvaxis. 
,, id., and ty. a house. 



APPENDIX A. 



527 



Welsh. 
Mynyd, 

Mynwent, 



English . 
A minute, 

Graveyard, 
tions in memory of 



limned. Derivations and Cognates. 
English ; Fr. minute ; Lat 
minutus. 
Lat. monumentum. Because erec 
the dead were to admonish the living 



Myrdd, | 
Myrddiwn, j 


A million, 


Gr. fivpids-dSos, pi. /xvpiaSuv. 


Mysg, 


Among, 


( A. -Sax. miscan ; Germ, mischen 
\ Lat. misceo. 


Cymmysgu, 


To mix, 


Natur, 


Nature, 


Lat. natura. 


Naturiol, 


Natural, 


„ id. 


Neb, 


None, 


,, nemo. 


Neges, 


Errand, 


Fr. negoce ; Lat. negotium. 


Nifer, 


Number, 


Lat. numerus. 


Nod, 


A mark, 


,, nota. 


NottJi, 


Naked, 


,, nudus. 


Nwyfus, 


Vigorous, 


,, navus. 


Odl, 


An ode, \ 
rhyme, j 




awdl, 


,, oda. 


Oed, 


Age, 


,, aetas. 


Oged, 


Harrow, 


,, occa. 


Ogof, 


A cave, 


,, cavus. But see, "<:«/»," "can, 
in Append. B. 


Olew, 


Oil, 


,, oleum. See "o/ezi 1 ." Append. B. 


Ongl, 


A corner, 


,, angulus. 


Or graph, 


Orthography, 


,, orthographia. See " crafu,' 
Append. B. 


Orivyrain, 


The east, quarter ) 

. . !• ,, onor, onens. 


dwyrain, 


of sunnsing, 




Pabell, 


Pavilion, 


Fr. pavilion; Lat. papilio. 


Padett, 


A pan, 


Lat. patella. 


Pal, 


Spade, 


,, pala ; A. -Sax. pal, a stake. 


Palas, 


Palace, 


Fr. palais ; Lat. palatium. 


Palf, 


Paw, palm of 
hand, 


Lat. palma ; Fr. palinc. 


Pannu, 


To full, 


„ pannus, a cloth. 


Papur, 


Paper, 


Fr. papier ; Gr. irdirvpos. 


Par, 


A pair, 


Lat. par. 


Parchell, 


A small pig. 


,, porcellus. SccEbel, " porchett. 


Pared, 


A wall, 


Sj an. fared ; Lat. parietes. 


Parod, 


Read}', 


I. at. paro, paratus. 



528 



:he pedigree of the English. 



Welsh. 


English. 


Imntcd. Derivations and Cognates. 


Parth, 


Part, 


Lat. pars, partis. 


Pastwn, 


Baton, staff, 


0. Fr. baston. 


Pan, 


The country, 


Fr. pays ; Lat. pagus. 


Pawl, 


A pole, 


Lat. palus. 


Pen-elyn, 


Elbow, 


,, ulna. 


Penyd, 


Penance, 


,, poena, pcenitentia. 


Pererin, 


Pilgrim, 


,, peregrinus (per-ager). 


Pcrffaith, 


Perfect, 


Fr. parfait ; Lat. perfectus. 


Periglor, 


A priest, 


Lat. periculum. The Welsh viewed 
the priest as one averting " danger." 


Peroriaeth, 


Music, 


Lat. os, oris. Prob. "per" from 
purus. 


Person, 


Person 


,, persona, sono. 


Perthyn, 


Belonging to, 


,, pertineo. 


Perygl, 


Danger, 


,, periculum ; Fr. peril. 


Pescu, 


To feed, 


., pasco ; Gr. /36c7cu. 


Phiol, 


A dish, 


,, phiala — Ebel. 


Pilio, 


To peel, 


., pilo. 


Pistyll, 


Conduit, 


,, fistula. 


Plethu, 


To plait, 


,, plico ; Germ, flechten. But, 
see "plygu," Append. B. 


Phi, pluf, 


Feathers, 


,, pluma. 


Pluazcg, 


Feathery, 


„ id. 


Plyg't, 


To bend, 


,, id. But see Append. B. 


Poen, 


Pain, 


., poena ; A.-Sa::. 


Pocnus, 


Painful, 


„ id. 


Poenydio, 


To impose pain 


, ,, pceniteo. 


Pont, 


A bridge, 


,, pons, pontis. 


Porch ell, 


A young pig, 
pork, 


a ,, porcellus. 


Porphor, 


Purple, 


,, purpura, or Gr. iropQvpa. 


Porth, 


A gate, 


,, porta. 


Portreiadu, 


To portray, 


Fr. portrairc. 


Post, 


A post, 


, ... ; Lat. postis, pono. 


Pol hell, 


Blister, 


t. pustula. 


Pottel, 


Bottle, 


Fr. 601 teilli ; [tal. both 


Praidd, 


A flock, 


Lat. pi 




Proof, 


,, probo. 


Profi, 


To prove, 




Profiad, 


Experience, 




J 'reseb, 


Man 


. 


Prescnol, 


Present, 


,, pr.i. ens, pra:-sum. 



APPENDIX A. 



52 9 



Welsh. 


English . 


Preswylfa, 


A habitation, 


Prif, 


Chief, 


Pris, 


Price, 


proffes, 


Profession, 


Pvudd, 


Wise, thoughtful 


Punt, 


A pound sterlin 


weight of 


money (Lat. libra). 


scillingas ; 


the Saxon, 48 ; the 


Pur, 


Pure, 


Pardr, 


Rotten, 


Pwll, 


A pit, 


Pwnc, 


Point, 


Pwrcas, 


Purchase, 


Pwys, 


Weight, 


Pwyso, 


To weigh, 


Pwyth, 


Recompense, 


Pydew, 


Pit, 


Pyg, 


Pitch, 


Pysg, 


Fish, 


Pysgotwr, 


Fisherman, 



Rhaith, 

Rhaith, 

advice. 

to each 
Rhadell, 
Rhamantus, 
Rheibio, 
Rhastel, 
Rliaw, 
Rhelyw, 
Rheul, 
Rheswm, 
Rhesymu, 
Rliialtwch, 
Rhidyll, 
Rhingcian, 
RhCd, 
Rliitu, 



Law, right, 

A jury, 
"Rhaith" law, anc 
other like A. -Sax. rih 
A grater, 
Romantic, 
To seize, bewit 
Hay rack, 
A shovel, 
Residue, 
Rule, 
Reason, 
To reason, 
Pomp, state, 

Riddle, 

To gnash, 

A wheel, 

To roar, 



Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 
Lat. prassul. A man is "chief'' 
in his own house. 
,, primus. 
English; orFr.^n'.v; Lat. pretium. 
English. Lat. profiteor, professus. 
, Fr. prude; Lat. prudens. 
g; A. -Sax. pund ; Germ. Pfund, a 
. The Norman pound was = 20 
Mercian, 60. 
Lat. purus. 
,, putris. 
,, palus. 
,, punctum. 
English ; or Fr. pourchasser, to 

obtain by buying. 
Fv.peser ; Lat. pendeo. 

,, id. 
Lat. pactum. 
,, puteus. 
A. -Sax. pic; Lat. pix. 

,, fisc ; Germ. Fisch ; Lat. piscis. 
Lat. piscator. 

A.-Sax. reht, riht ; Germ. Recht ; 

Lat. rectum. 
A.-Sax. raed, Germ. Rath, counsel, 
" rhaith," a jury, seem to be related 
and raed, and Germ. Recht and Rath. 
Lat. radula. 

Fr. romantiqite. (Romanus.) 
h, Lat. rapio. 

Ital. rastello, palisades. 
Lat. rado. 

,, reliquiae, Fr. reliijue. 
A.-Sax. regol ; Lat. regula. 
Fr. raison :■ ; Lat. ratio. 

„ id. 
Eng. royalty; Fr. royaute. 
A.-Sax. hridde! ; Germ. Ruder. 
Lat. ringor. 
,, rota. 
,, rugio ; Gr. dipio/xat. 

M M 



53° 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 


English. 


Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 


Rhwyd, 


A net, 


Lat. rete. 


Rhwyf, 


An oar, 


,, remus, Fr. ranie. 


Rhyfel, 


War, 


„ rebello, bellum. 


Scgru, 


To set apart, 


,, sacer, sacro. 


Sadwvn (dydd] 


, Saturday, 


,, Saturni (dies). 


Sacr, 


Carpenter, 


English saw-er, now sawyer, one 
who uses the saw. 


Sail, 


Foundation, 


A. -Sax. syl ; Lat. solum. 


Sam, 


A causeway, 


) T 


Sarnu, 


To strew, 


Lat. sterno. 


Sarph, 


Serpent, 


,, serpens. 


Scbon, 


Soap, 


Fr. savon ; Lat. sapo; Ital. sapona ; 
Gael, siabunn. 


Scgur, 


Idle, 


Lat. securus, sine-cura. 


Senedd, 


Senate, 


„ senatus, senis. 


Seneddwr, 


Senator, 


,, senator. 


Serio, 


To sear, 


A. -Sax. seoran. 


Siampl, 


Example, 


English. Lat. exemplum. 


Sicr, 


Certain, 


Germ, sicker; Lat. securus. 


Sicrhau, 


To assure, 


„ id. 


Siengl, 


Single, 


English. Lat. singulus. 


Sill, ) 
Sillaf, 1 


Syllable, 


( Engl, or Lat. syllaba ; Gr. avWaS,', 


( (taking together letters). 




Uncert. from which of these the Welsh is borrowed. 


Si one, 


Active, 


Lat. juvencus, young. 


Soddi, \ 

Suddo, J 


To sink, 


( A. -Sax. scothan, to boil, seethe, 
( hence " sodden"; Lat. sido. 


Sugno, 


To suck, 


Lat. sugo ; A. -Sax. sucan. 


BHgyl, 


Stile, 


A. -Sax. stigel. 


Swch, 


Ploughshare, 


Fr. soc ; Lat. seco, to cut. 


Swllt, 


Shilling, 


Lat. solidus ; late Lat. solta. 


Swnibwl 


A goad, 


„ stimulus. 


Sydyn, 


Sudden, 


English. A. -Sax. . 


Symbylu, 


To stimulate, 


Lat. stimulus. 


Swn, 


Sound, 


Fr. s •: ; Lat. sonus. Though a 


common 


etymon exists, thi 


; particular form seems to be thus 


derived. 


See ST. 1 ;;, sain, in Append. B. 




Office, 


l.at. situs. 


Syber, 


Sober, proper, 


„ sobrius, or Fr. sobrc. 


Sych, 


Dry, 


,, siccus. 


Sylfaen, 


Foundation, 


A. -Sax. syl, and \\ . ..:..■. a stone. 





APFE> 


DIX A. 55 


Welsh. 


English. 


Immed. Derivations and Cognates 


Syml, 


Simple, 


Lat. simplex. 


Sy in mud, 


To remove, 


,, se-moveo, motus. 


Synio, 


Perceive, 


,, sentio. 



To en n, 



To spread, 



Tafarn, 


Tavern, 


Taradr, 


Auger, 


Tarfu, 


To scare, 


Tasg, 


Tax, 


Tewi, 


To be silent 


Terfyn, 


End, bound, 


Terfysg, 


Commotion, 


Terfysgit, 


To make a 




motion, 


Teym, 


A king, 


Teyrnas, 


Kingdom, 


TeitI, 


Title, 



Ton, 



Tone, 



Traddodi, 


To deliver, 


Traddodiad, 


Tradition, 


Tract Ji, 


A sand, 


Tracthu, 


Relate, treat of, 


Trafael, 


Travel, labor, 


Trafaelu, 


To travel, 


Trawst, 


A beam, 


Trebl, 


Treble, 


Trist, 


Sad, 


Tristwch, 


Sadness, 


Trosedd, 


Transgression, 


Trwsio, 


Tie, or gird up, 


Try bed d, 


Trivet, 


Trysor, 


Treasure, 


Tymestl, 


Tempest, 


Tymer, 


Temper, 


Tymmyg, 


Timely, 


(tymp-ig) 





Sometimes der. from Lat. tendo. 
But see taenu, teneu, Append. B. 
English, from Lat. taberna, 
Fr. touret ; Lat. terebra. 
Lat. turbo. 
,, taxo; Gr. rao-crw. 
,, taceo. 
„ terminus. 

,, misceo. Terfysgit, as if from 
tor/ (a crowd) or twm>, (noise", 
and tnysgit, (to mingle.) 
■ „ id. 

,, tyrannus, Gr. rvpawos. 

„ id. 

,, titulus ; scarcely naturalized 
in Welsh, but in gen. use. 

,, tonus, prob. borrowed from 
English. 

,, trado, tradidi. 

„ id. 

,, tractus. 

„ tracto, like ffaith from factum. 
Fr. travail (s.), travaillcr (v.) 

„ id. 

Lat. transtrum. 

English. Not quite naturalized, 
but in common use. Lat. triplex, 
Fr. triste; Lat. tristis. 

„ id. 

Lat. transeo-itum. 
Fr. trousscr. 

English. Lat. tripes ; Fr. trepied. 
Fr.tresorj Lat. thesaurus; Gr. 

Lat. tempestas, tempus. 
English. Lat. tempero, id. 
English. A. -Sax. lima, time, has 
a common root with tempus 
M 2 



532 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 

Tymp, 

Tyner, 
Tyst, 

Tystio, 
Tystiolacth, 



Ufydd, 

Uffern, 

Ugain, | 
Ugaint, J 

Urdd, 

Urdd as, 
Usuriaeth, 

Uwd, 



English. 


III! 


mcd. Derivations and Cognates 


Time of child- 


Lat 


tempus. 


birth. 






Tender, 


,, 


tener. 


Witness, 


,, 


testis. 


To bear witness, 


,, 


id. 


Evidence, 


" 


id. 


Obedient. 




obedio ; /. substituted for h. 


Hell, 




infernum. 



/ Lat. viginti ; but a common root 

Twenty. is seen in Gr. eutocn; Lat. viginti ; 

v W. ug&in ; Gael../?r/;ead. 

Order, ordination, ) T , , 
_. . • Lat. ordo. 

Dignity, ) 

Usury English. Lat. usura. Scarcely 

naturalized. 

. . . Lat. uvidus. spoon meat. 



Ymbalfala, 


To grope, 


,, palma. 


Ymerawdwr, 


Emperor, 


imperator. 


^merodraeth, 


Empire, 


id. (Ymerawdwr-aeth.) 


i'mgcleddu, 


To cherish. 


colo. Pref.y;;/, reflexive. 


Ysgeler, 


Wicked, 


scelerosus. 


Ysgol, 


School, 


schola ; Gk. <rx°^V- 


Ysgol, 


A ladder, 


scala. 


Ysgrin, 


A chest, 


scrinium. 


Ysgub, 


A sheaf, 


., scopes. 


Ysgubell, 


A broom, 


scopula. 


Yspaid, 


A space of time, 


spatium. 


Ysplennydd, 


Bright, splendid. 


splendidus. 


Yspryd, 


Spirit. 


spiritus. spiro. 


Yspytty, 


Hospital, 


hospitium. 


Ystabal, 


A stable, 


stabulum. 


Ystad, 


Estate 


English. Fr. etat : Lat. sta'.um 
'• established possession. ' 


Ystajcll, 


Chamber, a room. 


I. at. stabulum. 


Yslod, 


Space, course. 


stadium. 


YslC, 


A stool, 


A. -Sax. stol. 


Ystori, 


History, 


Lat. historia. 


Ystorni, 


A storm, 


English. A.-Sa\. . 


Ystrad, 


Vale, street, 


Lat. stratum, sttrno. 





APPENDIX A. 55 j 


Welsh. 


English. 


limned. Derivations and Cognates. 


Ysu, 


To eat, devour. 


Lat, edo, esum 


Yswain, i 


Esquire, orig. a 

shieldbearer, 


,, scutum (a shield), scutiger 
Fr. ecuyer. 



ECCLESIASTICAL AND THEOLOGICAL. 



Abad, 


Abbot, 


Engiish. Lat. abbas-atiy. 


A berth, 
Aberthu, 


Sacrifice, \ 
To sacrifice, ' 
Sacrificer, ) 


Lat. offero, offertorium (a place of 


Abertlnor, 


sacrifice). 


Addoli, 


To worship, 


,, adoleo. 


Adfent, 


Advent, 


,, advenio, adventus. 


Allor, 


Altar, 


altare. 


Angel, 


Angel, 


English. Lat. angelus; Gr. &yye\os. 


Archesgob, 


Archbishop, 


Lat. archiepiscopus ; Gr. d-px^- 
ttIoko-kos. 


Bedydd, 


Baptism, ) 


„ baptizo ; Gr. pawTiCu; Gael. 


Bedyddio, 


To baptize, ) 


baisteadh (same source). 


Beibl, 


Bible, 


Prob. fr. English ; Gr. MpXos. 


Bendigaid, 

Bendigo, 

Bendith, 


Blessed, \ 

To bless, | 
Blessing, ) 


Lat. benedico, benedictus, benc- 
dictum. 


Calan (dydd), 


First day, 


,, calendar. 


Cangell, 


Chancel, 


,, cancelli. 


Cangliellwr, 


Chancellor, 


,, cancellarius. 


Capet, 


Chapel, 


Fr. chapclle ; Lat. capella. 


Cler ( as gwyv clei 


, Literate, 


,, Clerus ; Gr. i^ipos. 


literati), 






Credo, 
Credu, 


Creed, ) 
Believe J 


Lat. credo. 


Crefydd, 


Religion, 


,, credo, and fides (faith). 


Creu, 


To create, 


,, creo. 


Creadur, 


Creature, 


,, creatura. 


Creawdwr, 


Creator, 


,, creator. 


Creadigaeth, 


Creation, 


,, creatio, 


Crist, 


Christ 


„ Christus ; Xpforu?. 



1 When a word beginning with the letter s, followed by a consonant, 
is borrowed by a Celtic language, a vowel, generally they, is prefixed- 
This is seen in all the words beginning with Ys above. 



534 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 
Cristion, 
CHstionogaeth, 

Crocs, 

Croeshoelaid, 

Cwccwll, 

Cymmuu, 

Cymmuno, 

Cyffes, 

Cyffesu, 

Cyssegr, 

Cysscgraid, 

Cyssegr-ldn, 



English. 
Christian, 
Christianity, 
Cross, 
Crucifixion, 
Monk's hood, 
Communion, 
To communicate, 
Confession, 
To confess, 
Holy place, 
Consecration, 
Holy, 



Immed. Derivations and Cognates. 
Lat. Christianus. 

,. id, 

„ Crux. 

,, crux, and W. hoclio, to nail. 

,, cucullus. 

,, communio. 

,, communico. 

,, confessio, confiteo. 

.-, id. 

,. consecro. 

„ id. 
Cyssegr, and gldn, pure, holy. 



Dcddf,y ddeddf, 

Deddf-roddwr, 

Dcddfol, 

Degivm, 

Dcgymmu, 

Diacon, 

Diafol, 

Dicflyg, 

Diwinydd, 

Diwinyddiacth, 

Duw, 

Duwdod, 

Duicdol, 

Duwioldeb, 
Dwyfol, 



The law, Lat. datum. 

Lawgiver, Deddf, and rhoddi, to give. 

Legal, Deddf, and adj. term. ol. 

Tithe, Lat. decern. 
To take a tenth. ,, decimo. 
Deacon, ,, diaconus ; Gr. okIkopos. 

Devil, ,, diaholus ; Gr. oi<L3o\os. 

Devilish, Diafol, with adj. term. ig. 

A divine, Lat. divinus. 

Divinity, Diwinydd, and iadh, or aeth, mark- 
ing what belongs to the divine. 

God, Lat. Deus ; Gr. Gos, Zei's, Ms. 
Godhead, ,, divinitas. 

Godly, Duzc, and term, iol, indicating 

quality of likeness. 

Godliness, Duwiol, and term. deb. 

Divine, Lat. divinus. 



Efengyl, Gospel, ., evangelium ; Gr. ebayikwv. 

ylaidd, Evangelical, Efengyl, and adj. term. . 

Efengyhl, To evangelize, Efengyl, and verb term. u. 

Efengyl..;-, Evangelist, . and term, wr, denoting, 

like Eng. er, a masculine agent. 

Chui Fr. i at. ecclesia : Gr. 

tiackriffla. The "\Y. word is used b< th for the building and the 

n ol rfo, by metonymy, came in 

like manner to have this twofold signification. 

....;-, Churchman, . man. 



APPENDIX A. 



555 



Welsh. 


English. 


Elfenau, 


Elements (in the 




Sacrament), 


Esgob, 


Bishop, 


Esgobaeth, 


Diocese, 


Esgobyddiaeth, 


Episcopacy, 


Ffydd, 


Faith, 


Ffyddlawn, 


Faithful, 


Garawys, 


Lent, 


Gosper, 


Vespers, 


Grds, 


Grace, 


Graslawn, 


Gracious, 


Grasusol, 


Gracious, 


Gwener-y- 


Good Friday, 


Groglith, 






or service 


Gwyl, 


Festival, 


Gwylnos, 


Watch-night, 


Lleyg {gwr), 


Layman, 


Llith, 


A lesson, 



I mined. Derivations and Cognates. 
Lat. elementa (ultimate derivation 
unknown). 

,, episcopus ; Gr. €wL<tkotcos. 
Esgob, and aeth, what belongs to. 
Esgob-ydd-iadh. 

Lat. fides. 
,, id. ffydd, and llawn, full. 

., quadragesima. — E. 

,, vesper. 
English. Lat. gratia. 
Gras, and llawn, full. 
Lat. gratiosus. 
Lat. Veneris (dies), crux, lectio. 

The Friday on which a reading 
or service concerning the crucifixion was held. 
Lat. vigiliee ; Fr. veille, vigil. 
Guyl, and nos, night — a night of 

watching over a corpse. 

Fr. laique ; Lat. laicus. 
Lat. lectio. 



Merthyr, A martyr, ,, martyrus ; Gr. fidprvp. 

Mynwent, Grave-yard, ,, monumentum. Place of burial, 

and of erections to commemorate the dead and admonish or remind 

(moneo) the living. 



Nadolig, 
Offeiriad, 



Offeren, 

Offerenu, 
Offrwm, 
Offrymu, 
Ordeinio, 
Ordinhdd, 



Christmas, 



Lat. natalicia, a birthday festival. 



A priest, ,, cffero. A clergyman's chief 

function in the Roman Church was to offer the 
" sacrifice " of the mass. 

The mass, Lat. id. 

To perform mass „ id. 

Sacrifice, ,, id. 

To sacrifice, ,, id. 

Ordain, English. Lat. ordo, ordinatio. 

Ordinance, ,, ,, ordinatio. 



Pabell, 



Tabernacle, 



Fr. pavilion; Lat. papillio. 



556 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Welsh. 
Pader, 
Pdb, 

Pabaidd, 
Pabyddiacth, 
Pass;, 
Pcchadv.r, 
Pechod, 
Pah it, 
Periglor, 
Ply gain, 

Pregeth, 

Prcgcthwr, 

Pregethiad, 

Prophwyd, 

Proplnvydo, 

Proplncy dolit 



English. 

Lord's prayer. 
Pope, 
Papal, 
Popery, 
Easter, 
Sinner, 
Sin, 
To sin, 

Priest, curate, 
Matins, cock- 
crowing. 
A sermon, 
Preacher, 
A preaching, 
A prophet, ) 
To foretell, j 
Prophecy, 

iaeth—t 



[mmed. Derivations and Cognates. 
Lat. Pater (noster). 
Ital. papa. 

„ id. 

„ id. 
Lat. pascha; dr. iraaxu. 

,, peccator; Fr. pecheur. 

,, peccatum. 

,, pecco (root uncertain). 

,, periculum (see p. 528). 

,, pluma, cano. 

,. przedico, dictum. 

,, prasdicator. 

,, prasdicatio. 

,, propheta ; Gr. wpo, and Qwh 

to foretell. 
,, propheta, and W. termn -. 1 l- 
;e one adjectival, the other nominal. 



Saboth, 

Sabothol, 

Sanct, 

Sanctaidd, 

Sanctciddio, 

Sanctciddhdd, 

Sancteiddrwydd 

Sect, 

Scctariaeth, 

Sul, 

daeg ; the 
the sun. 

Sulgwyn, 



Sabbath, English. Heb. HSttJj re^t. 

Belonging to the Saboth, an adj. term. ol. 

sabbath, 

A saint, Lat. sanctus. 

Holy, Sanct, and adj. termin. aidd. 

To sanctify, Sanctaidd, and verb termin. io. 

Sanctification, Id., and had, nominal term. 

Holiness, Id., and rwydd, nominal term. 

A sect, English. Lat. seco, sectum. In 
common use, but scarcely naturalized. 

Sectarianism, English, with W. termn. 

Sunday, Lat.sol,solis(dies); A. -Sax,. 

sun's day. Germ. Sonntag. The Saxons worshipped 

Whit-Sunday. Sal, and gwyn, white. 



Tend, 
Trindodf 



Temple 
Trinity, 



Lat. templum. 
,, trinitas (post-class.). 



I 

Urdd, 

Urddas, 



Hell. 

Urdu-, 

Dignity, 



infernum. 
ordo. 

id. 



APPENDIX A. 



537 



Welsh. 


English. 


I mined. Derivation and Cognates. 


Urddo, 

Urddasu, 


To ordain, give 
dignity, 


j-Lat 


ordo. 


Yscymmuncdig, 


Excommuni- 






Yscymmuno, 


cated, 
To excommuni 


( 
■i " 


excommunico. 




cate, 


/ 




Ystwyll, 


Epiphany, 


,, 


stella (the star of Bethlehem 


Ysgrythyr, 


Scripture, 


,, 


scriptura. 


Ysgrythyrol, 


Scriptural, 


,, 


id. 



It were easy to show that the Cymric is not the only Celtic tongue 
corrupted by contact with other languages. The Cornish contains 
much Latin, and is saturated with English. The Manx is not free 
from Danish. The French ingredients found in the Armoric are 
numbered by thousands. The Gaelic, by reason of its early separation 
and less frequent contact with English, might be supposed to have 
preserved its purity nearly intact, but a few examples will show how 
greatly it has borrowed: English, master j Gael., mai glister ; merchant, 
marsanta; mountain, monadh ; honour, onior ; common, cumanta ; image, 
iomhaigh ; figure, fivghair ; feast, feish; failure, faillinn ; draw, dragh ; 
dozen, dusan ; school, sgoil; scholar, sgoilear ; devil, diabhol ; save, 
sabhail ; sacrament, socramaid ; steer, v. stiur ; sum, suim; board, lord ; 
time, Urn; pain, pian ; reason, reason ; market, margaah. The Irish, 
though more separated, is scarcely less corrupted than the nearly 
identical Gaelic. 






538 



APPENDIX B. 



Cymric Words sometimes derived from Latin, etc., 
but which seem to proceed from aryan etymons 
which have become the common property of 
many European languages, Classic, Celtic, and 
Teutonic. 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

A/on, A river, Lat. amnis ; Corn, avon ; Arm. 

avon ; Iv.abhan: Ma.nx.awin. 
Agos, Near, ,, vicinus; Gr. iyyus ; Ir. agus : 

Corn, agos ; ogas ; Arm. egos ; Gael, fogus ; Germ, enge ; Lith. 

anksztas ; Slav, aza, azu, vazu (vinculum). Comp. Lat. angor, 

angustia? — Ebel. 
Ail, Second, other, Gr. aAXos; Lat. alius; Gael. eiU; 

Corn, eil ; Manx, cllcy. 
Ay, Earth, Vide " aru." 

Argvjph, Imprint, W. ar, upon and crafu, to scrape, 

scratch, cut; Gael, grabhal, to engrave; A. -Sax. gracf, a graver : 

Gr. yp&rpu. 
Am, To plough, Gael, ar, to plough; Corn, aras, 

aradar, a plough; A. -Sax. crian ; to plough; Gr. dpuw ; Lat. aro : 

related to W. >:r, daear, earth ; A. -Sax. card ; Germ. Erde, earth; 

Engl, ear (of corn), and Old Engl, car, to plough. " General in all 

European Language s." — Ebel. 

, ', \ , , r • ^ Lat. aer; Gr. l-hp, Ec\\a\ Corn. 

A breath of air . .. 

m i ■ Gael, at e: 

A wen. Poetic aftlatus, \ T 

' q u . I 

. I ;. ■•, Air, ' 

Awr, Hour, ,, h ra: Gr. :-,a: Gael, uair; 

G . Uhr; C rn. i ur; Manx. 

. 



APPENDIX E. 539 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

Benyw, Woman, Lat. femina, venus; Gr. j3avd, yvvq; 

O. Germ, winia (uxor); ban, Corn, bcnow ; bcncn (spousa) ; Ir. 
bainion, bean, ben; Gael, bean; Sansc. vanitd; Arm. gwam ; Fr. 
femme. Comp. Bopp, and Ebel. 
Boreu, Morning, Gr. irput; A. -Sax. morn, morgan 

Germ. Morgen ; Corn, bore; 
Arm. beure. 
Bugail, A herdsman, Lat. vacca, pastor, bubulcus ; Gr. 

Bods. 
Buwch, A cow, Lat. vacca ; Gr. (3ovs ; Gael, bo ; 

Corn, buch ; Arm. bit. 
Brawd, pi. brodyr, Brother, Lat. frater ; Gr. <ppdrtjp, cppdrpa. 

(clan); Goth, brothar; Germ. Bvudev ; Corn, brand; Ir. brathair ; 
Arm. breur, pi. bredeur; Sansc. brata. Comp. Ebel. 
Byw, Alive, to live, Lat. vivus, vivere ; Gr. pios; Goth. 

quius; Lith. gyvas ; Slav, zivu ; Corn, beta; Arm. beva, bites (life). 
Comp. Ebel. 

Cue, ' An enclosure, ] Lat. castrum, cavus. Not reducible 

Caer, A c ; ty, fortress, \ to any Latin roots. Related to 

W. cau, to close; Ir. cathair ; Corn. caer. Comp. Pers. car ; Syriac, 
karac ; Arab, carac. 
Cacth, Shut in, captive, Lat. capio. But whence " cap" ? 

Cymbric has cae, an enclosure (as above); cau, to close, enclose ; 
hence caer, a fortress ; GaeL comb, a guard, defence ; Corn, cacth ; 
Arm. kez ; Lat. cavus. 
Cajn A hollow, W. can, hollow; Lat. cavus, hol- 

low ; Gael, uamh, a cave ; A. -Sax. cafer-iun, an enclosure before a 
dwelling. This " cafer" prob. same as W- caer. 

, / Lat. candidus, candco; W.gwyn, 

Cain, I . \ white, prob. same ; Gael, caw; 

Can, i Whitc ' dutiful, | i v .fi mn ; Corn, can ; Arm. can. 

' *> See, also, Given, gwyn. 

Car A friend, Lat. carus ; Gr. x a P^> X«P' s ; Gael. 

cava ; Corn, car ; Arm. car ; Fr. cher ; Sanscr. craiyas. 
Cariad, Love, Lat. caritas; Gr. x^-X d P'- T0 ^ and 

xalpu ; Gael, carantachd ; Corn, carense. 
Can, Hollow, Lat. cavus; Gr. uo^Xos] Gael. .... 

Cant, The end or haft • Lat. cornu, the projecting part ; Ir. 

of a thing, [ and Gael, cairn ; W. cam, pro- 
Corn, The horn, / miner.ee, pile; Corn, id'., as of 
land, " Cornwall," the horn or promontory of the Wealas, or Welsh. 



540 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

A. -Sax. horn ; Germ. Horn. The Teutonic differs from Celtic in 
the rough breathing h being substituted for c. 

Ceffyl, Horse, Gr. mfHXk-qs; Lat. caballus ; Fr. 

cheval; Ir. capall; Corn, cevil (Corn, local name Pen-cevil, " horse's 
head ") ; Manx, cabhyl. In use amongst peasantry in Yorkshire in 
Welsh form kevill. " Slav, kobyla ; Lith. kumeli, kumahikas."' — Ebel. 

Cell A cell, -. Lat. cella, a cell ; celo ; Gr. ko'lXos, 

Cclu, To conceal, hollow; Ir. and Gael. cil,ceall; 

Gerfio, To carve, V Corn, ecles, to hide: Sansc. cal, 

Gil, A corner, recess, j to cover : Gr. icXela, to shut in. 

Cilio, To retreat, ^ Vide " crafu" and " argraph." 

Ci, A dog, Lat. canis; Gr. ki/w; Germ. Hund : 

Ir. and Gael, cu, pi. coin; Corn, ci, pi. ken, kuen ; Sansc. cvan, c'un. 

Clock, . A bell, A.-Sax. clucge; Germ. Glocke; Fr. 

cloche ; Gael, clag ; Corn, clock; Manx, clagg. 

Cor, A choir, Lat. chorus ; Gr. %6pos ; Fr. clwcur ; 

Gael, coisir ; A.-Sax. chor ; Germ. Char. The first signif. of W. cur, 
is a circle, which proves its affinity to Gr. X"P°^> a dance in a ring. 
Not improb. that W. coron, Lat. corona, Gr. Kopdvij, Germ. Kn ne, 
are from the same idea of a circle — surrounding the head. 

Crafu, To scrape, cut, Yide " argraph " and ". 

&c, 

Cynnwrf, or Commotion, | W. cyd, together, twrf, a tumult ; 

Cynkwrf, disturbance, J or tyrfa, a crowd, multitude ; 

Lat. turba, a crowd; turbo, to disturb; \\". !;,r, a heap, tower ; 
Gael, tur, id.; A.-Sax. tor; Germ. Thurm ; Lat. turris, Sec. Yide 
"twr." W.twf, is the tumult of a crowd, or tyrfa: and tyrfa, 
like Lat. turba is a twr, tor, or tur, i.e., a heap or accumulation (of 
mem. Yide " torf." 

Dagrau, Tears, Gr. tidicpva; A. -Sax. tdeher, tear; 

Germ, ziihre; Gzel.deur; Corn, dager; Arm. 
Dt rw, deru en ) Qak an oak . tree ( Gr. SpCs, 86pu ; Lat. quercus, quer- 
(singular), i '. nus : Goth, triu ; A.-Sax. treow, 

a tree ; Slav, drevo ; Ir. dair, Corn, dar, pi, 

Yrm. rfcfo, i 
Dydd,p].dyddiau, Day, Lat, dies: Ir. rf»7»; Corn. </j<//;, 

rferf/t; Arm. ..'.., ./. ,\: : Sansc. Slav, dini ; Lith. dena. 

Wanting with this meaning in Germ, and Gr.— Ebel. 

Enw, Name, Cir. . '■: ,....- : Lat. nomen : Ir. 

Gael, r.inm : Con:. . . San c. 



APPENDIX P.. 541 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

Qalw, To call, Gr. m\iu ; Lat. (archaic) calo ; 

Gael, glaoclh; Germ. Schall, a sound; Corn, galow, a call ; Sansc. 
cat, to proclaim. 

Genu, To give birth to, Gr. yiyvo/xai, yepos ; Lat. gigno, 

geno, gens ; Gael, gin, to procreate ; gineal, offspring; Arm. gana ; 
Corn, geny ; Goth, kuni ; Slav, zenti; Germ. Kind; A. -Sax. cyn, 
lineage, race ; and prob. cunnan, to know, recognise, the nearly re- 
lated, and, on this account, be able, have power; hence cyn-ing, a 
•' king," either because a "power wielder," or one of the " race." 
Thus Engl, generate, genus ; kin, kindred ; king, know, are all 01 
one root, the common property of most of the Celtic, Gothic, and 
other tongues of Europe. 

Qwedyd, To speak, \ Gr. cu>5aj'w ; A. -Sax. cwyde, a 

Oweyd, Say, 't speech, saying; ewedan, to speak; 

Chwedl, A saying, J Corn, gwes'ys. 

Gwen,/., White, fair, ) Also applied as an epithet and 

Gwyn,m., Beautiful, j propername to females. A. -Sax. 

cwen, a queen, wife, woman. The Celtic adj. gwen, white, fair, has 
a significance, when applied as an epithet of distinction, which the 
A. -Sax. cwen has not. The latter is clearly borrowed from the 
former, as is proved by Cwensea, the Saxon name of the White 
Sea; Germ. Weissc-mecr ; Fr. Merblanche. The primitive sense 01 
" white " is lost to the A.-Sax. cwen, and Eng. queen ; and by this 
loss its use for a female ruler is simply arbitrary and technical. 
The W. given retains the primitive signification, and explains the 
reason of the epithet. Gael, and Ir. can and fionn ; Corn, gwyn; 
Arm. gwenn. The root is also seen in Lat. candco, candidus. Comp. 
also, Gr. yvvr/, yiyv o/j.a\ ; Lat. Venus, cunnus ; Goth, quens ; and 
Celtic, benyw, bean, as possibly all related. 

Gwir, True, truth, Lat. verus; Gael, fior; Corn, gwir ; 

Arm. gwir ; Germ, wahr ; Sansc, varyas. excellent ; Engl, very — 
" the very man." 

Gwin, Wine, This belongs to a class which from 

antecedent probability might be looked for in the primitive stage 01 
most European languages. There can be no reason for deriving it 
into Welsh or Irish from Latin. It seems to be the property of all 
the Aryan tongues, with slight differences, initial and terminal, 
corresponding to the genius of each. Gr. olvos, Mo\. yohos (origin. 
FZi/os) Lat. vinum ; Ir. and Gael. Jion ; Corn, and Arm., gwin ; A.- 
Sax., win; Germ. Wein ; Russ. vino. It is not absent from Semitic: 
Heb. ]», ain. 
Gwldn, Wool, PGr./irfAoj', beautiful, useful, good) 



542 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

Lat. lana ; Gael, olann ; A. -Sax. wull ; Germ. Wolle. The sheep 

is prevailingly white in all countries, and its covering, in W.gwldn, 

may owe its name to its pure and white appearance, from gldn, 

pure, clean. 

Gwr, A man, > Gr. ytpuv, an elder, a senator ; Lat. 

Qwron, A noble, brave > vir, Gr. (Lpys; Ir. and Gael. fear ; 

man, J A.-Sax. aw; Corn, goiir ; Goth. 

rm'r; Sansc. varus, from yrzr, to defend. 

Hafaljfel, vial, Like, similar, Gr. 6/j.a\6s; Lat. similis ; Gael. adv. 

amhuil ; Corn, haval ; Arm. hcvel. 

Haul, The sun, Gr. ffXtos ; Lat. sol ; Gael, and Ir. 

soil; Corn, //n;/; Arm. heol; Goth, sauil ; Lith. srt»/t\ 

Icuanqc, and) _. (Lat. juvenis, juvencus; Gr. t/S?;; 

r^ 1 Young, \ ^ . . . 

Ifangc, ) ° ( Corn. yonc,iouenc ; Arm. lonanc 

Sansc. yavan ; Goth. Jungs; Lith. jciunas ; Slav. y»»». Comp. — 

Ebel. A.-Sax. t#»£, ?'cw£, geong.— Bopp. 

L/a&, //«/;?, Slab, blade, Lat. lamina, Gr. i\a<r,u6s, blade of 

a sword ; Gael, lann ; A.-Sax. laef; Eng. fe«/; Germ. Laub. 
..... ( Width, wide, Lat. latus ; Gr. irXdros, vXaris ; Ir. 

'I Breadth, broad, leatltan; Corn, ledan; Arm. kdan; 
Gael, lend; Germ. Flait, a plain; Lith. />/a*«s; O. Norse, flair.— 
Ebel. 
Llewyrch, Alight, ashining, Gr. Xi'-x^oj; Lat. lux ; Gael. lochran, 

soileirich, to lighten ; Corn, lugarnj luclias, lightning. 
Llin, Flax, \ Gr. A/jw ; Lat. linum ; Gael, 

Llinyn, A string, ( Corn, lin; Arm. lin; Manx. 

Lin, lliazos, A multitude, G r. Xa6.r, Xaik6j ; Lat. laicus (hence 

Eng. /<7j'-man) ; Gael, lion, to crowd; A.-Sax. leod, people. 
Llucliio, To lighten, Lat. luxeo;Gr.Xtfxi'w; Gael. lot 

light; Corn, luchas, lightning; A.-Sax. Hitting. 
Llueh A flash of lightning Germ. 2 i, &c. 

Llyfr, A book, Lat. liber; Ir. and Gael. Icabhar ; 

Corn, lyvyr and levar ; A.-Sax. lar, doctrine. Germ. Left re, doctrine, 
lehren, to teach, &c, may be related. 

Main, To grind, Lat. molo : Germ, wahUn : Goth. 

mala::: Si ' .' Ir. in til : Com. tttelias; Ar: . 



APPENDIX E. 543 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

Melin, A mill, Lat. mola : Avm. melin ; Gr. /u'\?;; 

A.-Sax. mylen ; Germ. Miihlc ; Golh. moulin ; Fr. moulin; Arm. 
melin; Corn, melin ; Lith. malunas ; Sansc. mala/nan. 

Mariv, To die, Lat. morior ; Ir. mevbh, dead ; 

Corn, marwel, to die ; Arm. mervcl. 

Mel, Honey, Lat. mel ; Gr. fiikr, Ir. mil; Cor. 

and Arm. mel; Goth, milith. 

Mis, Month, Lat. mensis ; Gr. /jtfy, /xeis ; Ir. 

and Gael, mios ; Corn, mis ; Lith. menu ; Sansc, mas; Goth. 7;zcta. 

Min, ffin, cyffi- Edge, bound, Lat. finis, confinis;| Gael.' fluid; 

niau, limits, Corn, and Arm. min; also Corn. 

mein, margin, lip, mouth. From these Fr. mine, whence Eng. mien ; 
look, air, manner. 

Mor, The sea, Lat. mare ; Ir. muir ; Corn, and 

Arm. mor ; Anc. Gaulish, mori ; Germ. Mecr ; Sansc. miras. 

Mynydd, Mountain, Lat. mons ; Fr. mont and montagne; 

Ir. and Gael, monadh ; Corn, menedh; Arm. menez. Lat. mons is 
referrable to no simple root in that language, unless it be the archaic 
min, found in emineo, and this is none other than myn in W. mynydd 
men in Corn, menedh, and mon in Ir. monadh. Curiously enough 
mons and mens (mind) seem to have a common root, whose office is 
to mark prominence, projection, in mens associated with the promi- 
nence of the head, the supposed seat of intelligence (hence also W. 
menydd, brain), and in mons the prominence of the mountain. 

Nef, Heaven, Lat. nubes ; Gr. vtyos) Ir.neamh; 

Corn, nef; Arm. env ; Sansc. navas,iiabhas ; Lett, debbes, iovdnebbes • 
Slav. nebo. — Bopp. 

Nigivl, niwl, Mist, Lat. nebula ; Gr. ve^i\-q ; Germ. 

Nebel; Ir. neul; Corn. nhil. 

Nos, Night, Lat. nox ; Gr. vti%; Ir. and Gael. 

nocht ; Corn, nus ; Arm. nos; Goth, naht ; A.-Sax. niht ; Germ. 
Nacht ; Sansc. nic,nakta; Russ. noch ; Slav, nosch. The word is 
clearly from a common Aryan root. The history of its descent 
offers no proof of its being a Latin or a Teutonic gift to Celtic. 

Nyth, Nest, Lat. nidus; Ir. and Gael, nead; 

Corn, neid; Arm. neiz ; Sansc. Nida ; A.-Sax. nest ; Germ. Nest. 

Oes, An age, Lat. aetas ; Gr. altbv ; Lat. aevum ; 

O. H. Germ, ewa ; " is wanting in Slav, and Lith." Ebel! 

Oleic, eli, Oil, ointment, Lat. oleum ; Gr. H\a.wi>; Gael, ola 

oladh; A.-Sax. ael ; Germ. Acl ; Corn, oleu ; Arm. oleon ; Goth alev. 



544 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

Plygu, To bend, Lat. plico, flecto; Gael. />///; Corn. 

plegye, pleg, a flexion ; Arm. plega ; Germ, flechten. Lat. plica, and 

Eng. "plait" and "ply" related. 
Poll, People, Lat. populus (rel. to which is 

blebs); Corn, pobel ; Arm. poll; Germ. Piibel; Gael, poball. Q. 

whether W. " pobi '" is not of identical origin with W. " pob," all, 

every; or, whether pobi, and Lat. populus, are both derived from 

pob. Populus, sometimes contracted poplus, and plcbs, pleps, plebcs, 

are not reducible to Latin roots. 

Rhi, King, Lat. rex; Gael, righ ; A. -Sax. 

ricn • ; Germ. Reich, a kingdom; Corn, ruy, and ruif; Arm. roue; 
Fr. roi ; Goth, reiks ; Sansc. raj. 

Swn, ) o i Lat. sonus ; perhaps akin to Gr. 

' ; bound, r r 

Sain, ) arhw, to groan ; Gael, son ; Corn. 

and Arm. son ; A. -Sax. son ; a sound, a song ; Sansc. suaud. There 
is no reason for deriving W. swn and sain from Lat. which is desti- 
tute of a root simpler than sonus itself. 

Sedd, gorsedd, A seat, throne, Lat. sedeo, sedes; Gr. ; Corn. 

sedhe, esedhc (v.) ; Ir. suidh ; Arm. ase::a ; Goth, sitan ; Slav, sesti ; 
Lith. sesti. — Ebel. 

Sycli, Dry, Lat. siccus: Gr, o-auKos; Fr. sine : 

Corn, sych ; Arm, seach ; Lith. sansas ; 0. Slav, suchu. 

Taenu, To spread, Lat. tendo, tenuis ; Gael, tana, 

thin ; Corn, tanow ; Arm. tannad. The word tin seems to be from 
" taenu," to spread (a coating); A. -Sax. tan, a spreading; Sansc. 
ianu. W. tcncn is from same archaic root. 

Taran, Thunder, Lat. tono,tonitrus Gr. arlvu ; Gael. 

torrun ; Corn, taran : Arm. taran, lightning. It is known that this 
word was in use amoung the Ancient Gauls, for Lucan informs us 
that Jupiter [Tonans] was called by them Taranis. See, also, 
p. i8g. And so perh. TanarTJS, Inscrip. Orell. No. Z054; A. -Sax. 
thunder; Germ. Donner. 

Tarw, A bull, Gr. raiVo? ; Lat. taurus: Umbr. 

turn; Gael, tavbh : Corn, tarow ; Anc. Caul, tarvos ; Slav. lour. 
Conf. Max. Miiller, Oxford Essays, 1S56, p. 26. 

Torch, A ring, wreath, ) Lat. torqueo. But torqueo is not 

Torchi, To coil, wreathe. ) derivable from any Latin root ; 

tero, to rub, cannot be its origin. The idea of roundness, promi- 
nence, a bulging, or swelling, i^ expressed in Celtic by tor, twr, and 



APPENDIX B. 545 

Welsh. English. Cognates. 

the act of turning is expressed by troi. Big-bellied is torrog, in W. 

and Corn; Arm. torrec ; Gael, torrach. The Gaulish and Briton 

princes wore as an ornament a gold ring or collar around the neck, 

in reference to which custom, Llywarch Hen, circ. a.d. 620, uses 

the word eur-dorchawg, golden-collared, or wreathed. See p. 69, 

ante. A. -Sax. tumian, to turn ; tor, a prominence, hill ; Germ. 

Thurm; Eng. torch, because of the coiling action of flame. 

Tir, daear, Land, earth, Lat. terra ; Gael. Corn. Arm. tir ; 

Corn, tir dcvrac, watery ground; tir ha mor, land and sea. Terra 

is not traceable to a Latin etymon simpler than itself. The word 

is not represented in the Teutonic tongues. Fr. tcrrc : Ital. terra. 

Torf A crowd, -^ Lat. turba ; Cymric twr is a 

Tyrfa, A crowd, 5 heap, and tor means in Cymric, 

Tyrru,\. To crowd, ) Corn., Gael., and Arm. a rounded 

prominence, a hill, a heap, an accumulation; A. -Sax. tor, a hill, a 

peak, a tower; Germ.Thurui ; Dan. torm. 

Twr, A tower, Lat. turris. Same idea as in 

turba, and the Celtic and Gothic equivalents are the same as 

the cognates under '■"torf; " Gael., Corn., and Arm. tor; A.-Sax. 

tor and twr; Germ. Thurm; Dan. torm; Fr. tour; Gr. rvpais. 

Ty, A house, ) Lat. tectum, tego, (to cover) 

To, Thatch, ) Gr. Tiyos; to^os ; It. teach, tigh; 

Corn, ti ; Arm. ti ; Germ, dach ; Lith. stogas ; O. Norse, thak ; 

A.-Sax. thacc, theac ; Icel. thak, thatch. 

Ynys, An island, Lat. insula; Gr. pijaos £ mkcos. — 

Pott. Ir. inis ; Arm. cnez ; Germ. Inscl. 

Ysgrif, A writing, ) Lat. scribo, akin to Gr. ypd<pu ; 

Yss^rifio, To write, ) Germ, sclireibcn, to write; Corn. 

scrije, to write ; scrifcn, awriting ; Ir. and Gael, scriobh, akin to W. 
crafu, to scrape, carve ; Ir. and Gael, grabhal, to engrave, and 
grabhadh, an engraving, a writing. A.-Sax. writan is not a very 
distant cognate, so that the words carve, engrave, groove, grave, 
gravel, write, are all from an archaic term meaning to scratch or cut. 
It is known that writing was at first effected by cutting or scratching 
a smooth surface. 



WwWW 



NN 



546 



APPENDIX C. 



Schools and Learning among the Celts. 

Reference has been made in preceding pages to the influence of Celtic 
thought and culture in the Middle Ages upon the literature of Europe, 
and to the deficiency of education among the Modern Cymry as com- 
pared with the state of things among their ancestors. (See pp. 4S3' 
509.) The Celts of the British Isles have reason to remember with 
pride that, for many centuries, academic culture found among them an 
asylum when the Teutonic race, both in Britain and on the Continent, 
were principally concerned with war and conquest, and the feudal lords 
and even kings of England were so devoid of school knowledge as to be 
unable to write their own names. 

Great as has been the change for good which has come over the 
quick and versatile intellect of Ireland, there has not been an age since 
Christian culture had its birth when the Irish were not votaries of 
learning. This is witnessed as to the Early Middle Ages by MS. trea- 
sures which have come down to our own time, many of which display 
an advanced intelligence and an artistic beauty unequalled by the pro- 
ductions of any other country of the same age. The higher education 
is represented among the Modern Irish by several diocesan and 
monastic schools, by the University and Trinity College, Dublin, and by 
the Queen's Colleges and University — the creation, indeed, of the Eng- 
lish Government rather than of the Irish themselves. The reverence 
for learning and learned men inspiring all classes of Irishmen is an 
hereditary sentiment, the sign and memorial of ancient culture. The 
Scottish Celts give still greater proofs, if possible, of love for literary 
culture by the great universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and 
St. Andrew's, which they took care to establish at an early period after 
the revival of learning, and which, in co-operation with numerous 
schools of a superior type, have raised the mind of Scotland to such a 
height of improvement. 



APPENDIX C. 547 

The Welsh are now the only considerable section of the Celtic race 
not possessed of academic privileges ; for even Brittany, longer than 
Wales a conquered and incorporated province, has several lycees and 
colleges of good standing affiliated to the University of France. And 
yet time was when the high schools of Britain — schools really high 
and distinguished for their period — were confined to that western region 
called Wales. To the Germanic clans who conquered what is now 
named England, schools were unknown, and some centuries had passed 
before Alfred the Great — in large degree through the aid of the Welsh- 
man Asser, whom he summoned for the purpose from St. David's ! — 
succeeded in turning the minds of the Anglo-Britons (miscalled 
" Anglo-Saxons ") from the barbaric pursuit of the sword to mental 
culture and semi-civilized manners. Great schools at this time existed 
at Llanilltyd-fawr (now Lantwit-major) in Glamorgan, Bangor Iscoed, 
near Wrexham, and other places, to which the youth of Wales, and 
even of foreign countries, resorted by thousands. The site of the great 
monastery and school of Bangor is now covered by the green sward, 
and there exist but faint traces of the important institution of Llanill- 
tyd — once, it is said, possessed of not less than twenty " colleges." 
The domestic feuds of the Welsh in the early Middle Ages, and the 
desolating wars of the various invasions and conquests of Wales by 
English and Normans, totally annihilated, even to their last remains, 
these seats of learning, while concurrently with the growing power of 
the English arose by steady progress a taste for knowledge and great 
institutions of learning — of which Oxford was perhaps the first. Thus 
were the Welsh made to change positions with England. 

The later Middle Ages, and the period of the Reformation, when 
thought and knowledge revived in Europe, found the Welsh at the lowest 
depth of humiliation and poverty, their country and race under ban, the 
wealth of their schools transferred to England, and a virtual veto put 
upon all intellectual culture. To this day nothing has been done by the 
State to repay this cruel injustice. But time will again come when 
Wales shall possess her schools, and the genius of her sons shall 
have free scope, and the stimulus of native culture, for the 
competitions of public life. Private benevolence has established 
many good seminaries. Education, by stealing marches, will still go 
on, creating its own opportunities and effecting its own deliver- 
ance. Statesmen will arise who, free from national prejudice, 
and capable of rational judgment, will discern and recognise the claims 
of thirteen counties of the realm, with a population of a million and three 
hundred thousand souls. Already a new life is being infused into the 

1 See Asser's Life of Alfred, a.d. SS4. 

N 2 



548 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

older grammar schools, which, mainly through the pious liberality of 
individuals, had since the Reformation been established ; and, in health- 
ful competition with these, as population is increasing, middle-class 
schools of a superior kind, through the enterprise and ability of inde- 
pendent teachers, are arising. Under the new Education Act of 1870, 
with all its imperfections, a great impulse is being imparted to elemen- 
tary education ; and more pressing demands will be felt for a higher 
education midway between the common school and the university. The 
Oxford and Cambridge local examinations, along with other operations 
within the last ten years, have created a new educational period in 
Wales. 

Before the Principality can attain to a proper intellectual status the 
description of schools just mentioned must be supplemented, or rather 
crowned, with an institution of a higher order, planned upon a basis 
strictly unsectarian, offering an education thorough and comprehensive, 
and adapted in its working to the circumstances of the country and the 
spirit of the age. The curriculum should be framed with the view of 
preparing young men for university graduation either at home or in 
England. Great efforts have been made to secure this object, and with 
hopes of ultimate success. The project was launched, and a scheme 
of Academic instruction drawn out, in 1862, by Dr. T. Nicholas, then of 
Carmarthen College,* in answer to whose appeals a large sum of money 
was subscribed, a magnificent building was purchased at Aberystwyth 
in 1867, for the cost of which (£10,000) the fund was more than ade- 
quate, and a basis was laid for an appeal to the Legislature for a 
Charter and a grant in aid. Though as yet unassisted by Government, 
the University College of Wales has had a beginning, and it is hoped will 
be fostered both by the people of Wales and by Parliament. 

Although more fully developed than any other, this is by no means 
the first scheme proposed for academic culture for the Welsh. Under 
the Protectorate of Cromwell (himself descended from a [Cymric 
ancestry), the eminent divine Richard Baxter, in 1657, made a definite 
proposal " for a College with Academic privileges for Wales," which it 
is believed only fell to the ground through the death of the Protector in 
the year following. But this was not the earliest attempt to resuscitate 
the spirit ot learning in the Principality. When, in 14S5, the Tudor 
line, in the person of Henry VII., ascended the English throne, we,have 
clear intimations that the destitute condition of the country of his 
lathers touched the heart of that large-minded ruler, and that he 
granted the Abbot of Neath a Charter for a University of Wales. 
An intimation of the circumstance is given in Iolo Morganwg'a Cyfri- 

' See Reports oj Committee, 1S6S, 1870, 1S74. 



APPENDIX C. 549 

nachy Beirdd, based on some ancient writings ; but a confirmation of 
a reliable kind is given to it by a passage in a poem by Lewys 
Morganvvg, written in 1490, in praise of the same Abbot (Lleision). 
The passage may be rendered thus : — 

" A University at Neath ! A subject of celebration 
Through England ; a light for France and Ireland. 
A point of universal attraction to scholars 
As Zion is to pilgrims. 
Organs for choristers in white — 
The praise of competitions — 
Arithmetic, Music, shall in might contend 
With Rhetoric, Civil and Canon Law." 

This was probably the poet's own idea of a university course for those 
days — a rather degraded modification, it must be confessed, of the 
recognised curriculum of study in the great schools of the Middle Ages. 
These schools taught the " Seven Sciences," the Trivium and Quad- 
yivium, which were then held to embrace the whole circle of know- 
ledge — grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and 
astronomy, or in Latin verse: — 

" Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, tenor, angulus, astra." 

The Abbot Lleision was descended from an ancient and honourable 
family in Glamorganshire, and a partisan of Henry as a man of Cymric 
lineage, in his efforts to obtain the throne. How this proposal failed of 
accomplishment is not known. But the Principality of Wales, after 
waiting nearly 500 years, is still without a " College with Academic 
privileges" — still without a shadow of compensation for ancient seques- 
tration and pillage. The mind of the country is more than ever 
matured for high-class culture ; the population is vastly larger than in 
the time of Henry VII. and Cromwell ; wealth and industry, the 
demand for skilled labour and educated intelligence are rapidly aug- 
menting, and every reason which favours the increase of knowledge 
and the elevation of a province, pleads for a High School for Wales. 
Men profess to be surprised at the intellectual inferiority of Wales to 
Scotland — not giving heed to the fact that Scotland, with only double 
the population of Wales, has several Universities, which for three or 
four centuries have been in operation for the culture of the Scottish 
mind. Men are surprised at the intellectual force and distinction of 
Germany, ignorant or oblivious of the fact that every petty German 
State, though not larger, perhaps, than a medium-sized English county, 
or a third part of Wales, possesses its well-equipped University. 

The Celtic race in Britain, in one section of it, is thus depressed, intel- 






550 THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 

lectually, as a result of conquest, although that conquest in respect of 
liberty, law, and all political privilege, has been an unquestionable 
boon. The Celts of Wales, now far behind in literary attainments, are 
surpassed by none in a capacity and taste for knowledge. They maintain 
in this sense the reputation of the race which gave origin in Europe to 
the " University," as at Salerno, Bologna, Paris, and Padua — schools 
which arose after the decline of the great Monastic Schools of Wales, 
and had, as one of their chief originating causes, the romance literature, 
which has been already described as inspired by the Celtic genius of 
Wales and Brittany. It is curious to notice these alternations of Celtic 
learning and fortune, all of which, with many others, bring into strong 
relief the present and long past depression of education in Wales. 



<S*©^ 



INDEX 



Aaron, a British martyr, 160. 

Abelard, a Breton, 74. 

Aber, and its synonym inver, 51 ; 
havre, 422 ; inver, 423. 

Aborigines of Britain, Celts, 26 — 33 ; 
their varieties, ib. ; same origin as 
KeXrai, Cimbri, &c., ib. 

Acta Sanctorum, cited, 222, note. 

Adelung, J. C. his Mithridates, oder 
Allg. Sprach. 46, 334, 406,408. 

Admixture of Celtic blood with Teu- 
tonic in Britain, 210 : rendered pro- 
bable by slowness of Saxon conquest, 
201 — 210 ; testimony of Gildas to the 
contrary invalidated, 212 — 227 ; 
proved by numerical strength of the 
Britons, 227—235 ; by the history of 
the Conquest, 235— 266; by the Celtic 
element brought in by the Norman 
Conquest, 271—303; by history of 
political and social state of the 
people, 304 — 316; by philology, 
317—399; by local and personal, 
onomatology, 400 — 441 ; by develop- 
ment of English law, 442 — 450 ; by 
physical, mental, and moral charac- 
teristics of the English, 451 — 497. 

Admixture of race, benefits of, 20 ; in 
Britain, 123; between Romans and 
Britons, 185 ; between Britons and 
Saxons, 235 ; between Normans and 
English, 271; character and great- 
ness of the English, owing to, 504. 

Aegelsthrep, Britons and Saxons light 
at, 205. 

iElfric, the colloquium of, quoted, 
330; the vocabularies of, quoted, 
33°> 33i- 



^Eneas coming into Latium, 23. 

Aetius, alleged letter of Britons to, 
213—219. 

Agricola, the Roman general, | builds 
a wall from the Forth to the Clyde, 
91 ; in Britain, ib ; attacks Anglesey, 
147 ; encourages learning and trade, 
ib ; penetrates the North, ib ; erects 
the wall from the Tyne to the Sohvay, 
ib ; Latin up to the time of, not 
adopted by the Britons, 319. 

Akerman, J. Gr., on the coins of the 
Romans, 66, note. 

Alain, of Brittany, a chief in William's 
army, 286. 

Alaric invades Italy, 92. 

Alban, the British martyr, 160. 

Alclwyd, name of Dumbarton, 257. 

Alfred, King, appenrs, III; his great 
exertions, ib. ; his retirement, and 
great victory at Westbury, 112 ; 
aided by the old Britons, ib. ; his 
death, ib. ; will of, quoted, 232 ; 
JDomboc of, 446. 

Allen's Royal Prerogative quoted, 310. 

Alliteration, practice of, among early 
Britons, 71 ; among modern Welsh, 
73 ; evil effects of, ib. ; allit. and 
final rhymes among the Welsh, 74. 

Alsatians, the, 236. 

Americans, the, differ from the English 
type, 512; not "Anglo-Saxons," 

5'3- 
Ammianus Marcellinus on the Druids, 

78 ; quoted, 157. 
Ancalites, the, 132. 
" Ancient Britons," meaning of terms, 

25 ; all the, one in race, 58. 



552 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Aneurin, the bard, referred to, 69, 72, 
106, 187, 206, 336. 

Angles, the, invade Britain, 103 ; give 
the name to England, 105. 

Anglesey, inhabitants of, 265, note. 

" Angli, non, sed angeli," 105, 510. 

Anglia Transwalliana, 432. 

Anglo-Saxon, the, a journal called, 510. 

Anglo-Saxon words better preserved 
in Welsh than English, 345 ; lost to 
English, preserved in Welsh, ib. 

Anglo-Saxon, language, the, earlier 
relations of, to the Celtic, 319; 
replacement of the British tongue by, 
no proof that the Saxons were more 
numerous or their language superior, 
323 ; freedom from Celtic of the 
early, 328 ; not more than a third of 
modem English derived from, 398. 

Anglo-Saxons, the, invade Britain, and 
establish their different kingdoms, 
97 ; conquered by the Danes, 107 ; 
progress of, in subjugation of Britons, 
slow, 201 ; admixture of, with the 
British race, 210 ; were suipassed in 
number by the Britons, 227 ; pro- 
gress of absorption of the aborigines 
by> 2 35 ! constitution of society 
among the, 305 ; caused their ruder 
speech to replace the British, 323 ; 
personal names of, dropped in Eng- 
land, 428 ; the English not properly 
descendants of, 510,513. 

Annales Ca7nbria:, quoted. 216, 434. 

Apes, human descent from, 23. 

Appian, referred to, 30, 150, 

Aquitani, &c., of Caesar, who, 40. 

Architecture, Roman, in Britain, 182. 

Armoric language, the, 45, 47 — 49. 

Armorica, 45 ; peopled, 54 ; the Bry- 
thon come from, 55 ; Britons settle 
in 201 ; inhabitants of called " Bret- 
ton" and " Brittanni," 221, note, 
222, note, 229, 300. 

Army, Roman, in Britain, under Cresar, 
86, 87; under Aulus Plautius, 144; 
average number of, 94 ; magnitude 
of, under Scvcrus, 157 ; how consti- 
tuted, 186; how used, 196; promo- 
tion in, il>. 

Arndt's Europiiischen Sprachen, 334. 

Arnold, Prof. Matthew, on the Celtic 
race, 4S 1 , 4S2, 509, note; on Celtic 
Literature, 48 1. 

Ait and science in Dmidic times, 64, 
69. 

Art, not a guide on complexion, 458. 

Ait of writing known to Druids, 71. 



Arthur, King, mythic or historical, 98, 
99, note ; opposes Cerdic, 206. 

Ascanius, coming into Latium, 23. 

Asser, his life of Alfred, referred to, 
no, in, 257. 

Athelstan, compels the Britons to re- 
tire from Exeter, 251 ; gains the 
great victory of Brunanburh, 258. 

Athenians, origin of the, 23. 

Atrebatii of Gaul and Britain, 38. 

Attica, by poverty grew strong, 22. 

Augustus Csesar, refers to Britain, 159. 

Aulus Plautius, Roman general in 
Britain, 140. 

AvroxOopes, the idea of, 23. 

Avienus, referred to, 22, 59 ; his ac- 
count of Himilco's voyage, 59. 

Avon, Welsh for river, 52 ; applied to 
rivers in England, 408 ; found on the 
continent, 410. 

Aw, wy, avon, in Celtic names, 408. 

Ban, ben, in Celtic names, 406, 422. 

Bards, early, of Britain, office of, 77. 

Bardes Bretons, Poimes des, by de la 
Villemarque, 302. 

" Barbarism," a term not applicable to 
the Britons, 79. 

Barrow-tombs, their contents as evi- 
dence of civilization of Britons, 67. 

Barzaz-Breiz, by de la Villemarque, 
quoted, 302. 

Battle Abbey, 290. note. 

Bayeux, taken by the Normans, 279. 

Beddoe, Dr. J., on complexion of Eng- 
lish, 463, note. 

Bede, Ven., Eccles. Hist, referred to, 
50, 99, note, 102, 154, 160, 161, 
197, 204, 322. 

Belga?, their country, 36: mainly Celts, 
37 : cognate with the Cymry, ib. : 
their language, 37 — 40 : M. Souves- 
tre's opinion on, 40 ; what Caesar 
meant by, 40, 41, 42 ; their seat in 
Britain, 165. 

Belgic names of places, 3S. 

Belloquet, Roget de, his Ethnogfnie 
Gauloise, 41. 

Ben and pen, value of, as test words, 
406, note; 423. 

Berghaus's physical atlas, quoted, 480. 

Bertram, Professor, supposed author of 
Richard of Cirencester's History, 103. 

Bern and de Dinand, in William's 
army, 287. 

Betham, Sir W., his Etruria CelHca 
referred to, 41; on ring money of 
Celts, 61 ; note. 



INDEX. 



553 



Bibliothtque Roy ale, of Paris, Archives 
of, 427. 

Bibroci, the, 132. 

Blackstone's Commentaries, 447. 

Blood, intermixture of, its effects, 20. 

Boadicea, Queen, 69 ; overcome by 
Suetonius, 91 ; seriousness of the 
crisis her revolt occasioned, 145. 

Bod, in Celtic local names, 412. 

Bceotia, Thucydides on, 22. 

Bordarii, order of ceorls, 308. 

Bosworth, Dr. Jos., F.R.S., quoted, 
126, 310. 

Botticelli, Iris figures xanthous, 458. 

Boulogne, the port where Caesar em- 
barked, 86. 

Breton language, the, similarity of, to 
the Welsh, 45 ; M. Souvestre on, ib. 

Bretons, in William's army, 286 — 303. 

" Bretton," early name of Armoricans, 
221. 

Bretwaida, the office of, 137, 194 ; 
etymology of, 244, note. 

Brian, of Brittany, iriWilliam's army,26. 

Brigantes, The, of Yorkshire, 142. 

Britain, first inhabitants of, 21 ; its 
early tribes all of one race, 27, 32 ; 
first peopled from Gaul, 36 ; the Celts 
of, and of Gaul, 43 ; first peopled by 
the Cymry, 54 ; its ancient names, 
54 ; early notices of, 59 ; Caesar's 
account of, 61 ; writing known in, 
71 ; invasions of, 83 ; a point of 
attraction in early times, ib ; Roman 
invasion of, 85 ; Saxon conquest of, 
97 ; etymology of the name, 127 ; 
accumulation of race - elements in, 
123, 124 ; generally populated in 
Roman times, 128 ; prosperity of, 
152 ; the sumptuousness of Rome 
emulated in, ib ; conquered with 
difficulty by the Romans, 155 — 159 ; 
importance attached to its conquest, 
158 ; conquests of Christian Church 
in, 159 ; distribution of population 
in, in Roman times, 161 ; Roman 
cities in, 170; colonic in, 172; 
Roman divisions of, 177 ; the 
Romans leave, 182 ; language of, 
when the Romans departed, 188, 
319—323 ; condition of, when left 
by the Romans, 197 ; difficult subju- 
gation of, by the Saxons, 201 — 210 ; 
effect of Norman conquest on 
ethnology of, 271 ; constitution of 
society in, under Anglo-Saxons, 305 ; 
order of occupation of, shown by 
local names, 421. 



Britannia, the name, 127 ; sometimes 
applied to Wales, 249, note. 

Britannia Prima, its towns, 177; 
Brit. Secunda, ib. 

British, the name, suggestive of the 
race of the people, 123, 126. 

British bishops at the council of 
Aries, 160. 

" British," the proper name of the 
English, 123, 126, 127. 

Britons, the, their origin, 21 ; their 
state of civilization in Caesar's time, 
63 ; their skill in war, 64 ; devoted 
to trade, ib ; smelters of metals, 
65 ; coiners of money, 65, 66, 89 ; 
revelations of their barrow tombs, 
67 ; art of writing known to. 71; 
the sense in which they were con- 
quered, 79 ; their extirpation not 
attempted, 80 ; first attacked by 
Coesar, 85 ; second attack of,by Csesar, 
87 ; were tributarii, not vecligales, 
133; averse to taxation,^. ; resistance 
offered by, to the Romans, 137 ; 
stood alone in the conflict, 158; 
mutual distrust their weakness, ib. ; 
Caesar's boast of having conquered, 
them, 159. 

Britons, the, intermixture between, and 
the Romans, 185 ; did not generally 
adopt the Latin language, 188 ; 
settled in the Western side of the 
island from choice, 191; numerical 
strength of, at the Saxon invasion, 
195 ; causes of their weakness when 
the Romans withdrew, 197 ; their 
genealogies kept during their subjec- 
tion, 198 ; recover}' of their ancient 
spirit, ib. ; set up new governments, 
199 ; their quarrels, ib.; widespread 
and numerous, 200 ; the resistance 
they offered to the Saxons, 201 — 210 ; 
become incorporated with the Saxons, 
210 ; their number as compared with 
Saxons, 227 ; how far diminished by 
war, 230 ; " became Saxons," 232 ; 
remained on the conquered territory, 
235 ; their incorporation necessary 
10 form the new kingdoms, 240 ; 
the policy of Alfred towards, 250 ; 
by law joint rulers of Exeter, 251; 
recognised as a separate people in 
Wcsscx till near the conquest, 255 ; 
not slaves, or theowes, as such, in 
Anglo-Saxontimes,3on— 31 1 ; found 
in a state of bondage, 313. 
Brittany, formerly part of Lugdunensis, 
39 ; people of, related to the Cymry, 



554 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



45 ; language of, identical with 
Cymraeg, 47—49 ; contributes to the 
army of the Conquest, 286 — 303 ; 
called Llyda'di by the Cymry, 299 

"Brittanni," early name of the Bretons, 
221. 

Broca, M., on the Gallic race, 282 ; 
on the Celtic cranium, 476. 

Bronze spear-heads, British, 67, note. 

Brunanburh, the battle of, 258. 

Brut y Ty-wysogion, quoted, 259, 260, 
265, 301. 

Bryn, ire, in Celtic local names, 406. 

Bryneich, etymology of, 51. 

Brython, the, of the same race with the 
Britons, 36, 55 ; and Lloegrians, 53 ; 
mentioned by Taliesin, 237. 

Bunsen, Baron, on unity of human 
race, 28 ; on complexion of Germans, 
460. 

Burke, Edmund, on the supposed ex- 
termination of the Britons, 240. 

Cadwalla (or Cadwallader), a Briton, 
on the throne of Wessex, 243. 

Caedmon, the hymn of, 329. 

Caer, Celtic for fortress, 38, 291, 412. 

Caer-Caradoc, the battle of, 142. 

Caere, the town of, its privileges, 136 ; 
its name, ib., note. 

Caerlleon [Isca Siluiiim), a visit to, 372. 

Caer- Went, "Venta Belgarum," 127, 
note. 

Csesar on the British Celts, 40 ; on 
state of culture of Britons, 70 ; the 
conquest of Britain by, 63, 85 ; 
leaves Britain, 88 ; his death, ib.; 
on the population of Britain, 130 ; 
cultivates the friendship of theBritons, 
134 ; his invasion of Britain declared 
by Tacitus to be a failure, 156 ; 
Commentaries, referred to, 22, 32, 
43, 61, 62, 63, 65, 70, 71, %i, 89, 
130, 134, 166, 313. 

Caledonia, the Celts of, 45. 

Caledonian "States," 169. 

Caledonians, the, a numerous and 
warlike race, 148 ; attacked by 
Agricola, ib.; found to be a stubborn 
foe, ib.; are defeated at the battle 
of the Grampian Hills, [49. 

Caligula, the Emperor, makes a sham 
conquest of Britain. 156. 

Calpurnius Flaccus, 459. 

Camalodunun (Colchester), 145, 172. 

Camden, referred to, 65, 69, 141, 252, 
404. 

Cantii, the, quickly submit to Cesar, 131. 



Canute, the Dane, becomes King of 
England, 107, 113, 116. 

Caracalla, extends citizen privilegest o 
the Britons, 151. 

Caractacus, the British prince, a son of 
Bran, 89, note ; opposed by Ostorius, 
89 ; is led captive to Rome, 90 ; is 
liberated, 91; referred to, 140; leads 
the Silures against Ostorius, 142 ; the 
importance attached at Rome to his 
capture, 156. 

Caradog Freichfras, 300. 

Carausius, the usurper, 153. 

Cam, a Cymric word, 51, 406. 

Cartismandua, Queen, betrays Caracta- 
cus, 90, 143. 

Carlovingian dynasty, the, 276. 

Carnoban, commot of, 57. 

Cartmel Britons, disposed of, 246. 

Cassivelaunus, the British chief, 87, 132. 

Catalauni, the, of Gaul and Britain, 38. 

Cattraeth, battle of, 69, 206. 

Catyeuchlani, the, 38, 132. 

Celt, temperament of the, 193. 

Celts, called Germans by Greeks, 30 ; 
their routes to Britain, 34. 

Celtic elements, in the English lan- 
guage, 333 ; derived since the Anglo- 
Saxon conquest, 341 ; criteria re- 
specting, 347 ; in the modern English 
dictionary, 34S— 30 1 ; in the living 
dialects of England, 364 — 372; in 



obsolete English, 



in Chaucer, 



376—377 ; in the popular speech, 
378 ; assimilated since the Semi- 
Saxon period, ib ; derived through 
the Latin, 365, 384 — 387 ; derived 
through Norman-French and the 
Teutonic tongues, 387 — 397 ; process 
of their assimilation, 397. 

Celtic languages, or dialects, 46, 47, 52 ; 
remains of, in English. ^i>i> 37 2 - 

Celtic Literature, Arnold's, 481. 

Celtic Studies, Ebel's, 334, 415. 

Celtic tribes of Britain. 31. 

Celts, KAtcu, TaMrai, $$ ; of Britain 
and Gaul, 43 : of Ireland and Cale- 
donia, 45 ; and Teutons, related, 28 ; 
power of in North Britain extin- 
guished, 259. 

Celyddon, the name, related to Galatx, 
Cclta-. Galli, Sec., 56. 

Cen (Ir. cean), Cymric for head, 51. 

c 'en til, I raelic of j - ,51. 

Census ol~ [86l, 453. 

Ceorls, in Ang.-Sax. society, 306, 308. 

Cerdic, founds Wessex, [02; opposed 
by Arthur, 206. 



INDEX. 



555 



Cerdicsford, battle of, 205. 

Characteristics, physical, of the English, 
452; mental and moral, of ditto, 479. 

Charlemagne, Empire of, 24, 276 ; 
Romance of, 489. 

Chaucer, the Celtic of, 376. 

Cherbourg, a Celtic name, 289. 

Chersonese, Cimbric, 32. 

Christian church, the, in Britain, 159. 

Christianity brought into Britain, 95. 

Clironique de Normandie, 283, 284. 

Cil, a recess, in local names, 911. 

Cimbri, the, inhabited the Cimbric 
Chersonese, 30 ; the Nervii descen- 
dants of, ib. ; the, of the Chersonese 
were Celts, 31 ; the Cimbri, Cimmerii, 
and Cymry, related, 32 ; the Cymry 
of Wales of the same stock with the, 
31 : gave name to the Crimea, 34 ; 
defeated by Romans, ib. ; time when 
they came to Britain uncertain, ib. 

Cimbric Chersonese, the, once peopled 
by the Cimbri, 30 ; named from the 
Cimbri, 31. 

Cimmerii, the, the ~Kiiiix£piot. and the 
Cymry of the same race, 32. 

Cities, three principal, of the Triads, 

171, note. 

Cities, Celtic names of, and towns, in 
England, 412. 

Cities, Roman, in Britain, their various 
designations and privileges, 170 — 
173 ; their position and distribution as 
evidence of native population, 174. 

Civilization of the Ancient Britons, 59. 

Claudius, the Emperor, invades Britain, 
89 ; is styled " Britannicus," ib., 140. 

Clawdd Offa, Offa's Dyke, 262. 

Climate of Ancient Britain, 83. 

Clovis invades Gaul, 274. 

Code of Howel Dda, 445, note ; 449. 

Ccelbren y Beirdd, referred to, 42. 

Coinage, early British, 65, 89. 

Colonial, the Roman, in Britain, 170, 

172, 177; in Wales, 174; object of 
establishment of, 178. 

Comes Britanniarnm, office of, 181. 

Comes Litoris, in Pembrokeshire, 434. 

Comes Litoris Saxonici, office of, 181. 

Comparative Philology, its basis, 335. 

Complexion of the ancient Germans, 
455 — 461 ; of Greeks and Romans, 
456 ; of the English, 461 — 464 ; of 
Welsh, 465 ; of the Celts, 465—471. 

Conan Meiriadog, his expedition to 
Brittany, 299. 

Coningsby, William of, a Breton, 288. 

Consulares, officers so called, 180. 



Conquest, the Roman, of Britain, 85 ; 
the Saxon, of Britain, 97 ; the Danish 
107 ; the Norman, 1 15 ; influence ot 
Roman, in driving the Britons to the 
western side of Britain, 190; slow 
progress of Roman, 137; extermina- 
tion of the natives not an object ot 
the Roman, 134 ; nor of the Saxon, 
246 — 264. 

Constantine, the emperor, 91, 154; 
the Britons have peace in his time, 

154- 
Constantius, the emperor, 91, 153. 
Constantius, the presbyter, his life of 

St. Germanus. 221. 
Conversion of Saxons not attempted 

by Britons, 105, note. 
Coraniaid, the, who, and whence ? 56. 

57, 192; join the Saxons, 57. 
Coritavi, their seat in Britain, I64. 
Cornish language, the, 47 ; the speech 

of the West of England at the time 

of the Conquest, 253. 
Cornish Vocabulary, 48. 
Cornu-Britamiicum, Lexicon :, Williams,' 

47, note. 
Cornwall, the name, 252 ; the Britons, 

possessors of, ib. 
Cornavii, their seat in Britain, 164. 
County divisions of England, 305 ; 

ditto of Wales, ib., note. 
Coxwall Knoll, 142. 
Craig, an element in local names, 406. 
Crania Americana, Morton's, 476. 
Crania Britannica, quoted, 457> 475- 
Cranium, form of, in old Germans and 

Celts, 471 — 479; English, 477. 
Creccanford, battle at, 205. 
Crimea, the, of cognate derivation 

with Cimbri and Cymry, 34. 
Cumberland, local names of, 261, 269, 

411; is inundated by Norwegians, 

269, 
Cumberland dialect, 369. 
Cumbria, the kingdom of, its locality, 

206 ; lost to the Cymry by the battle 

of Cattraeth, ib. ; its people Celts, 

256; extent of, 256,257; subject to 

frequent attacks, 260. 
Cumbrians, 35 ; lose the battle of Cat- 
traeth, 206 ; choose Edward as lord, 

258 ; arc conquered by Athclstan at 

Brunanburh, ib. ; rise against the 

Danes, 259 ; become subject to the 

Scottish king, ib. 
Cunobelin (Cynfelin), his coins, 66, 89. 
Cuvicr, Baron, his classification of 

mankind, 27, note. 



556 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE EXGLISH. 



Cwm, cum, in Celtic local names, 411. 

Cymenes-ora, battle at, 205. 

Cymric, or Welsh language, 45 ; simi- 
larity of, to Armoric, 47 ; to Cornish, 
49 : dissimilarity of, to Irish, 48 ; 
corruption of, 'from Latin, 187 ; 
changes in its grammatical inflexions, 
336 ; of the sixth cent., ib. ; com- 
parison of, with Greek, 338 ; as pre- 
server of Anglo-Saxon words, 345 ; 
corruption of, through Latin, French, 
English, 380 — 384, 515; archaic 
words common to, and to Teutonic, 
&c, 382, 538. 

Cymry, the, descendants of the ancient 
Cimbri, 31 ; Zeuss's opinion on the 
name, ib. ; the relation of, to the 
Belgse, &c, 33 ; relation of, to the 
VLiMxipioi, 34 ; the time of their 
coming to Britain uncertain, ib. ; 
powerful among Celtic tribes, 35 ; 
their love of nationality, 35, 54 : their 
attachment to language and customs, 
80; were not seen by Cassar, 130; 
concentration of, in Wales, 192 ; 
claimed to be the first colonists of 
Britain, 199 ; opposed to alliance 
with Saxons, 202 ; a section of, ruled 
in Cumbria, 206 ; surviving in Wessex 
under Athelstan, 232, 251 ; retire 
into Wales, 234; have a prince of 
their race on the throne of Wessex, 
(a.d., 685,) 243 ; the language and 
laws of, in use in West of England 
at time of Conquest, 253—255; of 
Cumbria and Strathclyde, only re- 
cently incorporated, 256—262 ; a 
cause of trouble to Offa of Mercia, 
262 ; power of, in Herefordshire, 
263 ; effects of Danish and Norman 
conquests on, 266 ; multitudes of, 
settle in Brittany, 298—303 ; law a 
science among, 446 ; complexion of, 
dark, 465 ; the Romance literature 
originated by, 482 — 490 ; relation- 
ship of, and the English, 506. 

Cynddelw, the early bard, quoted, 73. 

Cynegils, Saxon King, 242. 

Damnonii, people of Dyfnnaint, 251. 

Danclage, the, a source of English 
law, 446, 449, 493. 

Danes, The, invade England, 107 ; 
rapidity of their conquest, ib. ; first 
arrivals, io<>; increase of numbers, 
ib. ; begin to settle, 110; gain East 
Anglia and Northumbria, [10,268; 
their increasing extortion, I 13 ; their 



final triumph, ib. ; their conquest 
but slightly affected the Ethnology 
of Britain, 114; like that of the 
Saxons, their conquest a mere mili- 
tary achievement, ib, ; policy of 
Alfred towards, 268; estimate of 
their contribution to the population, 
ib. ; massacre of, ib. ; length of 
their rule in England, 270; related 
to Saxons, 271 ; settlements of, in 
Pembrokeshire, 439. 

Danish invasion, influence of, on Eth- 
nology of England, 266, 270. 

De Belloquet, his Ethnoginie Gauloise, 
41, note. 

Deal Harbour, place of Coesaris land- 
ing, 87, note. 

Demetae, their seat in Britain, 165. 

Denizen, derivation of, 353, 362. 

Denmark, the name, 107. 

Depping, his Expeditions, 278. 

Devon, people of, brought under rule 
of Wessex by Athelstan, 253 ; after 
Athelstan, had self- government, ib. ; 
held courts, 254, 255. 

Dialects, Celtic, 39, 45 ; divergence of 
the, 47 ; principle of subdivision, 
47, 48. 

Dialects, living, Celtic words in 364. 

Dictionary, the modern English, Celtic 
elements in, 348 ; proportion of 
Teutonic in, 398. 

Diefenbach's Celtica, 406, 408. 

Diez's Lexicon Etymologicum, 334. 

Din, an element in local names, 406. 

Dinan, in Brittany, its name, 2S7, note. 

Diocletian, divides the empire, allotting 
Britain to Constantlus, 153. 

Diodorus Siculus, on the Cimbri, 32 ; 
his account of the Britons, 60, 70 ; 
referred to, 22. 

Diogenes Laertius, on the Druids, 78. 

Dion Cassius, referred to, 31. 50, 69, 
88, 89, 140, 155, 159. 

Distribution of the British population 
in Roman times, 161. 

, the, of King Alfred, 446. 

Domesday-Book, nature of its contents, 
252 ; is no guide to Celtic names of 
occupiers, ib. ; quoted, 253, 305 ; on 
the senile class, ortheowes, 307, 314 ; 
enumeration of population by, 314. 

Donaldson, Dr., on the effects of Da- 
nish ami Norman invasions on Eth- 
nology of England, 270. 

Druidism, intellectual and moral aspect 
of, 71 : proper seat of in Britain, 70; 
the religious influence of, 78. 



INDEX. 



557 



Druids, as teachers of the young, 7 1 : 
knew the art of writing, ib. ; their 
authority in Government, 64 ; Pytha- 
gorean in doctrine, 75. 

Dugdale, Monasticon, 119, 249, 288. 

Dumbarton, the Celtic Alclwyd, 257 ; 
history of the name, ib., note. 

Durandus' Rationale Divin. Offic, re- 
ferred to, 74. 

Durotriges, a tribe of Britain, 165. 

Dux Britanniarum, office of, 181. 

Dwr, Celtic for water, 38; in Celtic 
local names, 408, 410, 414. 

Ea, Ey, in local names, 403. 
Eai-ly English Romances, quoted, 486. 
East Anglia, Saxon Conquest of, 103. 
East, the, of Britain, condition of, in 

Roman times, 190. 
Ebel, Dr. Hermann, referred to, 334. 

51 5, et passim; his additions to Zeuss' 

Grammatica Celtica, 334. 
Eboracum (York), one of the two 

Roman Municipia in Britain, 171. 
Edmund, King, cedes Cumbria, 259. 
Edward, the Confessor, shows favour 

to Normans, 116, 296. 
Edward, son of Alfred, Lord of the 

Strathclyde Britons, 257, 258. 
Edwards, M. W. F., referred to, 282 ; 

on complexion of English, 465 ; on 

Celtic skull, 476. 
Egbert, King of Wessex, 103 ; his 

resolve to subdue the Britons, 244 ; 

fails to penetrate beyond the river 

Tamar, ib. ; nature of his rule over 

the Britons, 248. 
Eingl, Gwyddyl, and Prydyn, 237. 
Eisteddfod Meetings, orations at, 510. 
Ella, leader of the Frisians, founds the 

kingdom of Sussex, 102. 
Ellis, Mr., Early English Roman* . 

quoted 486. 
Ellis, Sir H., introd. to Domesday, 

quoted, 308. 
Emperor Napoleon III., his Life of 

Ccesar, 86, 87 ; fall of, 404. 
Empire, French, abolished, 404, note. 
England, origin of name, 105, [26; 

•conquest of, by the Danes, 107 : 

by the Normans, 115; compound 

character of the people of, 123 ; the 
name formally imposed by Egbert, 
249, note ; Celtic local names of, 
406 — 423 ; surnames of people of, 

424 ; recent Celtic, personal names 
in, 430—432 ; the Christian names 
of, neither British nor English, 427 



— 430 ; local names of, proof of race 
admixture, 416 — 423, 500; greatness 
of, 503 ; Cymbric blood in, 506 ; the 
inhabitants of, not descendants of 
Anglo-Saxons, 512. 

English nation, miserable state of, on 
Alfred's death, 113, 115. 

"English," origin of the designation, 
105, 126, 143. 

English language, early stages of, 328 ; 
Celtic elements in, 333 ; words lost 
to, 342 ; Celtic words in the modem 
dictionary, 348 — 361 ; ditto in living 
dialects, 364 — 372 ; ditto in obsolete 
English, 372; in Chaucer, 376; in 
the speech of the common people, 
378 ; Celtic in, chiefly Cymbric, 379 ; 
elements in, through Latin, found 
also in Celtic, 384—387 ; why call 
these " Celtic " ? 384 : element in, 
from Teutonic Tongues and Norman- 
French, also found in Celtic, 387 — 
397 ; natural process of infusion of 
Celtic into, ib. ; aquisitive genius and 
prospects of, 398 ; not more than 
one-third of, Teutonic in origin, ib. ; 
diffusion of in Wales necessary, 509. 

English people, the, origin of the name, 
105, 126 ; ethnical materials in the 
composition of, 123—128 ; amalga- 
mation of the Ancient Britons with, 
235 ; influence of the Danish inva- 
sion on the ethnology of, 266 ; in- 
fluence of the Norman invasion on 
ethnology of, 271 ; physical charac- 
teristics of, 452 ; complexion of, 455 ; 
have become a dark-haired race, 461 ; 
cranial form of, 477 ; mental and 
moral characteristics of, 479 ; a Celto- 
Teutonic race, 491 ; psychological 
characteristics of, 495 ; the gradual 
formation of, 503 ; secret of the great- 
ness of, 504 ; the greatness of, ib. ; 
affinity of, with the Welsh, 506—508 ; 
their properly Saxon origin ques- 
tioned, 510; not Anglo-Saxons, 512. 

" Fnglyn," a vVelsh, 73, note. 

" Englishry " of Pembrokeshire, 437. 

Eochar, King of the Alani, 222, 223, 
note. 

J'.orls, in Anglo-Saxon Society, 306. 

Ercenwine, founds the kingdom of the 
Easi Saxons, 102. 

Essex, kingdom of, set up, ib. 

Ethelfrid, King, hi \ policy towards the 
conquered, 242. 

Ethelred, of England, flics to Nor- 
mandy, 1 ro. 



558 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Ethelwerd's Chronicle, cited, 103, 203. 
Ethnogenie Gauloise, de Belloquet's 41. 
Ethnology, the early, of Britain, 25 ; of 

the Englishman, how written, 496. 
Etruscans, the, 23. 
Etymology, dangers and difficulties of, 

344, 346- 
Eudes, of Brittany, sends his sons with 

the Conqueror to England, 286. 
" Eugubian Tables," 41. 
Eusebius, referred to, 154. 
Evans, J., F.R.S., on British Coins,'66. 
Evreux, taken by Rollo, 279. 
Exe, the river, the boundary of the 

Britons, 255. 
Exeter, city of in the 10th cent., partly 

governed by the Welsh, 251. 
Expulsion of Britons, an absurd idea, 

104. 
Expulsion of population, not Roman 

policy, 134. 
Extermination of British Aborigines, 

improbable, 79 ; not attempted by 

Romans, 134 ; or by Saxons, 233, 

234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 246, 248, 250, 

252-264,499. 
Extirpation seldom possible, 80. 

Faith and Scepticism in England, 313, 

note. 
Fel Ynys (Island of Honey), name of 

Britain, 54, 55. 
Fenton's, Pembrokeshire, 426. 
Ferguson's Northmen in Cumb. and 

West., quoted, 269. 
Feudalism, growth of, in France, 277 ; 

its laws of war, 279. 
Ffichti, see Gwyddyl. 
Flavia Caesariensis, towns of, 178. 
Flemings settle in Pembrokeshire. 433 
Florence of Worcester, quoted, 238. 
Fortification, art of, among Britons, 65. 
Fortification, the Britons' skill in, ib. 
France, after Charlemagne, 277. 
Franco-Prussian war, the, 505, note. 
'■Frankmanni," the, 274. 
Franks, the, 24; conquer Gaul, 274; 

give name to France, 275. 
French people, the, character of, 492. 
Frisians, under Ella, found Sussex, 102. 
Frontinus, the Roman General, subdues 

the Silures, 146. 

" Gael Albinich," and " Erinnich," 44. 
Gaelic language, differing from Cym- 
ric, 47 . 
Gaels, or Gwyddils of Ireland, 46. 
Galatae, of Asia Minor, 39. 



Galedin (Holland), " the men of," 56. 

Galgacus, his speech before battle of 

the Grampian Hills, 168. 
Galli, the Ancient, 40; divided into 
many kingdoms, 43 ; the Galli of 
Armorica related to the Britons, 45 ; 
of Gallia Celtica, related to the Irish, 
37, 42 ; of Gallia Belgica, related to 
the Cymri, 42 ; modern French, who 
are descendants of, 282. 

Gallia Belgica, its situation, 37 ; 282. 

Gallois, the French proper name, of 
Welsh oiigin, 426. 

Garnett, R., Essays, referred to, 51. 

Gaul, people of, classified by Caesar, 39. 

Gaulish Inscriptions, 41 — 43. 

Gavelkind, law of, of British origin, 447. 

Gavol, feudal law term, 310, note. 

Geoffrey Gaimar, quoted, 288. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, referred to, 91, 
99, 153, 2 °3, 204, 228, 483, 485. 

Geological periods, origin of man com- 
pared with, 27. 

Geraint ab Erbin, of Llywarch Hen, 
quoted, 336. 

German scholarship, 333. 

Germania of Tacitus, quoted, 457, 459. 

Germans, the Ancient, complexion of, 
456—461; skull form of, 471 — 479: 
psychological characteristics of Eng- 
lish compared with those of, 494 : 
character of, not attributable to 
modern, ib., note. 

Germanus, Bishop, in Britain, 161, 220. 
223; his life, by Constantius, 221: 
probable bearer of a message to 
Aetius from the Armoricans, 221. 

Gibbon, Edward, quoted, 103,218,222. 

Gildas, referred to, 99, 105, 197, 212 — 
227; his authority as an historian 
examined, 212; his story of the 
weakness and pusillanimity of the 
Britons without foundation, ib. ; his 
story quoted, 213; popular belief 
solely based on his authority, 214; 
his identity doubtful, 215 ; Iris sup- 
posed life, 216; several persons of 
the name, ib ; his book not trust- 
worthy, 217; Gibbon's opinion of, 
218 ; wrote without original sources, 
219; his historical blunder or fraud, 
ib. ; his blunder detected, 219 — 224 ; 
contradicts authentic historians, 224 : 
was biassed, ib. : his history exagge- 
rated and improbable, 225 ; flatters 
the Romans, ib. ; depreciates his 
countrymen, 220 ; his story unworthy 
of credit, 227 ; quoted, 435. 



INDEX. 



559 



Giraldus Cambrensis, referred to, 93, 

198 ; quoted, 198, 433. 
Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., Studies 

on Homer, 456. 
Gloucester, a British city, 238. 
Gloucestershire, people of, Celtic, 263. 
Gododin, of Aneurin, 187 ; quoted, 336. 
Gods recognised by Saxons, 313, note. 
Godwin, Earl, the Saxon, 1 17. 
Golyddan, the bard, quoted. 72, 234. 
Goths, the, invade Italy, 92. 
Government, among the Britons, mo- 
narchal, 63. 
Grammatica Celtica, of Zeuss, referred 

to, 32, 49, 324. 
Grampian Hills, the Battle of the, 149 ; 

Galgacus's speech before the, 168. 
Greece., tribes of, origin of, 22. 
Greek complexion, dark, 456, 457. 
Greek, relation of Cymric to, 317, 

333. 
Gregory, afterwards Pope, his saying, 

Non Angli, &c, 127, 510. 
Grimm, J., his Gesch. der Deutsch. Spr. 

referred to, 30, 328. 
Guerni's translation of Livy, 469. 
Guest's, Dr. E., English Rhythms, 

referred to, 329. 
Guizot, M., quoted, 136, 275, 276. 
Gurthrigern, or Vortigern, 213. 
Gwazvd Lludd Mawr, Taliesin's, 237. 
Given, the word, 387, 541. 
Gwvddelians, or Gwyddyl Fichti, the, 

57, 58, 237. 

Gwyddyl FJichti, the Triad on the, 57, 

58, 237. 

Gwynedd, " Venedotia," 127, note. 
Gwysg, word for stream in Welsh, 38. 

Hadrian, the Emperor, in Britain, 91 ; 
part of Caledonia lost to the Romans 
in his time, 150. 

Hadrian's Wall, built, 91. 

Haerethaland, name of Denmark, 109. 

Hair, colour of, among Gauls and old 
Germans, 455 ; the art of colouring 
the, not of recent origin, 457, 468 ; 
colour of among the Germans, 459 ; 
among modern English, 4O1 ; among 
the Cymry, 465 ; among the Ancient 
Britons, 470. 

Halbertsma, M.,on the English Alpha- 
betic th, 338. 

Hallam, H., Middle Ages, quoted, 315, 

Hardicanute, Icing of England, 116. 
Harold, the Saxon, his oath to William, 
117; is crowned king of England, ib. ; 



is opposed by his brother, Tostig, ib. ; 

loses the battle of Hastings, 118. 
Hastings, battle of, events lsading to, 

117 ; the battle, 118, 273. 
Havelok the Dane, 374. 
Havre, same as aber, 422, 423. 
Hawkins, Mr., on early British coins, 65. 
Hearne, T., quoted, 288, 293. 
Heineccii, Hist. Jur. referred to, 93. 
Helen, son of Deucalion, 22. 
Helena, the Empress, a Briton, 153 ; 

mother of Constantine the Great, ib. 
Hellas, the abode of many tribes, 22. 
Hengist arrives in Britain, 100 ; his 

conflicts with the islanders, loo, 203. 
Heusinger's translation of Livy, 468. 
Hercules, story of, 23. 
Hereford, once in Wales, 263. 
Herefordshire, its people Celts, 262. 
Herodotus, on civilised state of Britons, 

.59; I2 9- 

Himilco, on civilised state of Britons, 
60 ; on population of Britain, 129. 

Hindoo race, the, 24. 

Historical blunder, or fraud, of Gildas, 
219—204. 

History of England, early, the popular 
notion concerning, baseless, 212 ; its 
source, ib. ; written in local names, 
403,421. 

Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, 67. 

Homer, on complexion of the Pelasgi, 
456, note. 

Horace, quoted, 23, 101, 399. 

Horsley's Britannia Romans, referred 
to, 94. 

Houses of the Britons, how built, 130. 

Hu Gadam, the legend of, 24 ; the 
Triad on, 54. 

" Hue and Cry," early use of, 306. 

Hughes's HorcB Britanmcae, 161. 

Huguenots, the, contribute to the Celtic 
blood of England, 501, note. 

Huns, invade the Roman empire, 92. 

Human race, of one origin, 23 ; classi- 
fication of, 27. 

Humber, the river, deriv. of name, 237. 

Huxley, Prof. T. H., quoted, xii. 

Hywel Dda, laws of, quoted, 198; re- 
ferred to, 445 — 449. 

Iberians, characterised, 295. 

Iceni, the, of Norfolk and Suffolk, rise 

against Ostorius, 141. 
Ida, founds the lcingdom of Norlh- 

Humbra-land, 103. 
Ina, laws of, quoted, 249, 310, 31 1. 
Indigenes aborigines, the Roman, 23. 



560 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



Indo-European, the class of languages, 

28 ; the, variety of the race, ib. 
Influence of Roman rule on Britain, 93. 
Inguar and Ubbo, Danish leaders, 1 10. 
Ingulf of Croyland, quoted, 117. 
Invasion, Roman, of Britain, 85; Saxon 

97; Danish, 107 ; Norman, 115. 
Iiwer, and its synonyms aber, havre, 

422-423. 
Mo MSS., referred to, 42. 
Ireland, the Celts of, 45 ; first peopled 

from Britain, 46. 
Irish, the, language, its difference from 

Welsh accounted for, 46, 48, 50 ; 

changed in form, 337. 
Iris (Ireland ? ), cannibals in, 32. 
Italy, various tribes of, 23. 
Itinerarium Antonini, the, on tribes 

of Britain, 163. 
Itium, modern Boulogne, 86, note. 
"Ivanhoe," Scott's, 280. 

Jews, race purity of, 21. 

John of Hexham, quoted, 260. 

Jornandes, referred to, 222, note. 

"Jupiter tarans" in Ennius, 189. 

Jury, trial by, probable original of, 254. 

Jutes, the, inhabit the Cimbric Cher- 
sonese, 30 ; under Hengist and Horsa, 
found the kingdom of Kent, 102, 203. 

Jutland, peopled by Cimbri, 30 — 34. 

Juvenal's Satires, quoted, 459. 

Kalends, Lat., Welsh Calan, 188. 

Kaarcnreptoes of Herodotus, 61, note. 

Kemble, J. M., his Hist, of Anglo- 
Saxons, quoted, 244, 400. 

Kent, Ancient British Kingdoms in, 
63 ; inhabitants of, more civilized 
than other Britons, 61 ; Coesar lands 
in, and subdues, 63, 85 ; the Saxon 
Kingdom of, established, 102. 

Kil, or Cil, in Celtic local names, 411. 

Ki/j-ixipioi, Cimmerii, Cimbri, 34, 43. 

King Alysaunder, 374. 

King Arthur, romance of, 483. 

" Kingdoms," of Early Britain, 166. 

Knight's C, Old England, cited, 177. 

Kombst, Dr., on Celtic and Teutonic 
races, 480. 

Lancashire, iti inhabitants in the 10th 
cent., 246. 

Lancashire dialect, 53, 368. 

Land of Cokaygne, 374. 

Language, shows oneness of mankind, 
27; of Britain on the arrival of the 
Saxons, 188, 319—323 ; the cultured 



sometimes succumbs to the rude r 
323 — 327 ; conquerors do not always 
impose their, 320 ; grammatical forms 
of, evanescent, 335, 338 ; lexical 
materials of, enduring, 339 ; the 
English, its history and growth, and 
corruption, 328 — 399. 

Languages, process of separation of. 47. 

Languages of Britain, time of Bede, 
321. 

Lappenberg, Dr., quoted, 248, 262, 307, 

3"- 

Latham, Dr. R. G., his Varieties of 
Man, referred to, 27 ; his edition of 
Prichard's Celtic Origin, &c, 28 ; 
his writings, 31, note; his opinion 
on the Cimbri, ib. ; his English Lan- 
guage quoted, 329 ; on the Silurian 
Celts' complexion, 471. 

Latin, corruption of Cymric with, 187, 
515 ; not the speech of the Britons, 
when the Saxons arrived, 188, 319 — 
323, archaic words common to, with 
Celtic, &c, Appendix B. ; not 
adopted by the Britons when Agricola 
began his command, 320 ; why it 
became the language of Gaul, 324. 

Latio jure do?iatcc, Roman cities, 172. 

Latin hymns, early, with rhyme, 74. 

Law, the Anglo-Saxons' respect for, 
316 ; evidence of English, as to Celtic 
admixture, 442 — 450. 

Laws, Ancient British, adopted by 
Anglo-Saxons, 443 ; conformity be- 
tween Anglo-Saxon and, 447. 

Lay anion's Brut. 374. 

Le Brut d' Angleterre, 485. 

Legende Celtique, la, of de la Yille- 
marque, 302. 

Leges Wallice, Wotton's quoted, 188. 

Leo, Dr. H., his Vorlesungen, referred 
to, 180, 334, 410 ; his Feru 
schriften, and Rectitudines, 334. 

Lewis Glyn Cothi, cited, 51, 3 

Lexical forms, value of, 339. 

Lhwyd, Edward, quoted, 38 ; on Irish 
and Cymbric, 46, 57. 

Libert homines, order of ceorls, 308. 
'St. Margaret, 374. 

Life of Thomas Beket, 374. 

Lindisfame, the See of, receive 
gift the Britons of Cartmel, 

Livy, referred to, 68, 130 ; on the com- 
plexion of the Gauls, 408. 

Lloegr (England'!, origin of name, 5 j. 

Lloegrians, the, a British tribe, j 
54,58,236,237. 

. • the, 54, 55. 58. 



INDEX. 



50 1 



Llychlyn, the name, 57. 

Llydaw, the name given by the Cymry 
to part of Brittany, 299. 

Llywarch Hen, the bard, quoted, 69, 
336 ; referred to, 106, 188, 207. 

Lobineau, the historian, his Histoirede 
Bretagne, referred to, 92, 287, 299. 

Local Names, their nse, 400 — 423; 
ethnological value of 405 — 423. 

London, the period of its rise, 139 ; a 
great mart of trade in the first cen- 
tury, 144 ; a place for ethnological 
study, 452 ; Celtic denizens of, 431, 
note ; birthplaces of the population 
of, in 1861, 453 note. 

Londinium, London, 144, 172. 

Lucan, on the Druids, 78. 

Lucien Bonaparte, H.I.H. Prince, as 
student of Celtic, 334. 

Mabinogion, the Welsh, 483. 
Mackintosh, Sir J., referred to, 62 ; 

118, 288 ; note, 206. 
Macsen Wledig (Maximus) 92. 
Mac-Tierns, title of Alain and Brian, 

, 2S7. 
Malcolm I. and III. of Scotland, 259, 

260. 
Malmesburv, W. of, quoted, 93, 117, 

119, 248/251, 258, 283, 296, 433, 434. 
Man, recent origin of, 27. 
Mandubratius, Ccesar protects, 134. 
Mankind of one origin, 27; divisions 

of ib. 
Manx language, the, 47. 
March, Earl of, first, 263. 
Marches, region of the, 263 ; origin of 

the name, ib. note. 
Marsh's English lang., referred to, 362. 
Martyrs, first Chnscnn. -n Entanr 160. 
Massacre of the Danes, 2C8. 
Mass-thane, title of priest, 307. 
Matrona, river, (Mame), 42. 
Matthew Paris, his Flor. Jlist. 161. 
Maxima Caesariensis, 177, 1 78. 
Maximus, {Macsen 1! ledig) 92. 
" Men-at-Arms," feudal, 279. 
Mercenlage, the, as source of English 

law, 446, 449. 
Mercia, kingdom of, established, 103, 

208; origin of name, 263, note. 
Merddyn Wyllt, quoted, 69. 
Merlin^ romance of, 483. 
Metres, the four and twenty Welsh, 73. 
Meyer, on Celts coming to Britain, 34; 

on ktudy of Celtic Language, 334. 
Meyrick's Origin. Jnhab. referred to, 65. 
Middle Ages, romances of the, of 



Celtic origin, 482 ; higher tone ot 
mind in the, among the Cymry, 490. 

Migration, Celtic, routes of, 34.' 

Minos, myth of, 22. 

Jlithridates, the, of Adelung, referred 
to, 46, 334, 406, 408. 

Monasticon, Dugdale's, 249, 288. 

Money, pre-Roman British, 65, 66. 

Monmouthshire, inhabitants of, 264. 

Monumenta Historica Britannica, re- 
ferred to, 66 ; its catalogue of British 
coins defective, ib.\ quoted, 162, 
215, 216, 288. 

Mor Tawch, the Hazy Sea, 35. 

Mountains, Celtic names of, in Eng: 
land, 406 — 408. 

Miiller, Max, Prof. Lectures on Lan- 
guage, quoted, 323, 378 ; his opinion 
on the coiruption of the Celtic 
dialects, 38 r, note; referred to, 398. 

Municipia, Roman, in Brit., 170 — 172. 

Myrcnarice, or Mercia, 263. 

Myths, real persons changed into, 99. 

Myvyrian Archaiology of JFales, re- 
ferred to, 53, 55, 56. 57, 183, 192, 
2 34> 2 oJ< -Mr- 
Names, local, evidence of, 400 ; endu- 
ring nature of, 400—402 ; uses of, 
403 ; classification of, ib. ; ethno- 
logical value of Celtic, 405 ; names 
of hills, mountains, 406 ; names of 
rivers, 408 ; evidence of, as to race 
admixture, 416 — 423 ; history written 
in, 420 ; order of occupation of Brit- 
ain commemorated in, 421 ; Teutonic 
in Wales, 432 ; as proof of race 
admixture. 416. 

Names, personal, evidence of, 424 : 
surnames of recent origin, ib. ; value 
of, as proof of admixture, 427 ; de- 
rived from Scripture, 420 ; disuse in 
modern times of both ( 'eltic and 
Saxon, ib. ; recent Celtic, in England, 
430 ; Welsh, ib. ; Scotch, ib.; Irish, 
431 ; Teutonic, in Wales, 432. 

Nant, in local names, 408, 411, 412. 

Napoleon, the Emperor, his < , ir, 
referred to, 44 ; on Cx-sar's point of 
embarcation and debarcation, 86, 87. 

Nash, D. W., F.S.A., on Gaulish in- 
scriptions, 41 note. 

Nationality, not a Roman idea, 136 ; 
how viewed by the populace, 235. 

Nations, composite character of, 19 ; 
ancient, obscure origin of, ib, ; quies- 
cent, not progressive, 20. 

Negotia?nli cura of the Britons, 65. 

OO 



56: 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH 



Nennius, referred to, 92, 97, 99, 100, 101, 
103, 154, 2or, 204. 

Nervii, a Celtic tribe, 30. 

Neustria, Rollo conquers, 115 ; old in- 
habitants of, 274; its race not changed 
by conquest, 274—281. 

Niebuhr, his Rom. Hist., 135, 170. 

Nigra, the Chevalier, 334. 

Non AnglisedAngeli, 127, 5x0. 

Norman Conquest, 115; influence of, 
on ethnology of England, 271, 303 ; 
the muster for the, 286 ; the army 
largely Celtic, 289, 293 — 303 ; com- 
memorated in Breton poetry, 302. 

Norman descent, pride of. 2S5. 

Normandie, origin of name, III, 271. 

Normandy, Rollo settles in, 115, 271 ; 
Ethelred flies to, 116; early people 
of, Celts, 120; later people of, not 
Normans, 272. 

Normans, the, invade England, 115 ; of 
kindred blood with the Danes and 
Saxons, ib., 116, 271 ; their settle- 
ment in Neustria, 115 ; basis of 
"William's claim to the English 
throne, 116; their influence in Eng- 
land before the Conquest, 117 ; gain 
the Battle of Hastings, 11S; the 
number of their army, ib., note ; their 
army largely composed of Celtic 
soldiers, 120 ; only in a small degree 
affected the ethnological character of 
the English, ib. ; all "Normans " not 
Northmen, 272. 

Northumbria, the Saxon kingdom of, 
established by Ida, 103, 104, 256; 
inhabitants of mainly Celtic, 269. 

Norwegians inundate Cumberland, 269; 
and Danes in Pembrokeshire, 440. 

Notitia Imperii, on the tribes of Britain, 
163, 171, 197- 

Obsolete Celtic words in English, 379. 

Occupation of Britain, length of, 92 ; 
order of, commemorated in local 
names, 421—423. 

Offa's dyke, 262. 

Oldham, dialect of, specimen of, 53. 

Ordericus Vital is, quoted, 283. 

Origen, refers to the Britons, 160. 

Ostcr-rikr. the, 275. 

Ostorius, the Roman General, opp ! 
to Caractacus, 89; subdues Britain 
as far as Yorkshire, 91, 141 ; meets 
the Silures, 142; the boast of the 
Silures respecting bis death, 143. 

Owen, Prince of Strathclyde, 258. 

Qwl and Nightingale, 374. 



Pal grave, Sir F., referred to, 29, 39, 

93, 245, 254, 327, 445, 446, 449. 
Parish Divisions of England, 305. 
"Parsley," derivation of, 388. 
Patercufus, quoted, 32. 
Pedigree, the, of the English, a short 

one, 125 ; how written, 496. 
Pedigrees, Welsh and Irish, 425. 
Pelagius, (Morgan), a Briton, 160 ; his 
speculations, 1 Gi ; his errors embraced 
in Britain, ib ; confuted, ib. 
Pelasgi, the, 23 ; the Celts related to, 

456, note. 
Peloponnesus, Thucydides on the, 22. 
Pembrokeshire, Flemings in, 433 ; the 
English of, 435; Saxon, Danish, and 
French local and personal names in, 
439 5 physical character of people of, 
440. 
Pen and ben, value of, as test words, 

406, note. 
Pendragon, the office of, among the 

Britons, 98, 100, 137, 199, 
Pentculu, the law of, 198. 
Pen-val, a Cymric word, 50. 
Pepin, over-runs France, 276. 
Percy, Bishop, referred to, 486. 
Pharsalia, Lucan's, quoted, 78. 
Philology, the evidence of, on admix. 
ture of race in Britain, 317 ; limita- 
tion of its use, ib. ; its testimony 
clear, 31 8. 
Phoenicians, the, 129. 
Pictet, M., on Gaulish inscriptions, 41. 
Pictish local names, 50; Kings, 51 ; 

personal names, ib. 
Picts, the, and Scots, 49 ; a branch ot 
the Cymry, 50, 97 ; the Cal 
first called by the name, 154 ; break 
over the wall of Severus, ib ; late 
use of the name, 260. 
Piers Plowman, Vision of, quoted, 7:. 
" Pilgrim " derivation of, 387. 
Plautius, Aulus, in Britain, 140. 
Pliny, quoted, 70, note. 
Plurality of origin of human race, un- 

Bc, 27. 
Poetry, modern "regular" Welsh, 

specimen of, 73, note. 
Poems, the Ancient Welsh, age of, 69, 
Political state of society, as indicative 
of a Imixture ol~ Britons and Saxons, 
304. 
Polybius, quoted, <>o. 
Pontifex, origin ofthe epithet, 324, note. 
Pouchet, M., on complexion, 471. 

the, attachment of to locality, 236 
Population, of Britain, in Roman times, 



INDEX. 



)6 3 



128; was large, 129; Himilco, on, 
ib ; Ccesar's testimony on, 130 ; 
capable of yielding revenue, 133 ; 
expulsion of, not the Roman policy, 
134 ; extent and power of, under the 
Romans, 137 ; distribution of, in 
Roman times, 161 ; Roman, in 
Britain, 179; proportion of Danes in 
the, 268 ; of England, in Edward the 
Confessor's time, 305 ; divisions of, 
in Edward's time, ib ; the servile 
class of, 307, 313 ; Celtic accession 
to, in modern times from Wales, 430; 
from Ireland, 431 ; Celtic addition 
to, by Huguenot refugees, 501. 

Population " Abstracts," 453, note. 

Porphyry, his reference to Britain, 159. 

Post Office Directory, London, 430. 

Pott's Etymolog. Forschungen, 408. 

Pott, Dr. F. A., quoted, 317. 

Praesides, officers so called, 186. 

Pre-Celtic people in Britain, 26. 

P re-historic Annals of Scotland, Wil- 
son's, quoted, 476, 478. 

Prichard, J. C, his works referred to, 
2 8. 50, 320 ; on complexion of the 
Germans, 460 ; on effect of town life, 
&c, on complexion, 461, 463 ; on 
the cranium of civilized races, 472. 

Princely and noble Britons, under the 
Romans, 194. 

Prisci, the, a tribe of Latium, 23. 

Procopius, De Bell. Goth., quoted, 327. 

Provincia, the Roman, 139. 

Pruner Bey, on Roman and Greek 
crania, 474. 

Prydain, the Triad on, 54. 

Prydain, son of Aedd the Great, 127. 

Psychological characteristics of the 
English, Germans, &c, 495. 

Ptolemy, his Geogr., referred to, 99 ; 
on the tribes of Britain, 162 — 165. 

Pughe, Dr. W. O., his theory of the 
Welsh language erroneous, 381 ; his 
Dictionary of Welsh language, ib. 

" Queen," derivation of word, 387, 541. 

Race, absolute purity of, impossible, 
19 ; Celtic and Teutonic, characters 
of, 20; purity of Jewish, 21 ; the 
Ancient Britons of one, 26; leading 
race divisions of mankind, 27 ; early 
relation of the Celtic and Teutonic, 
28 ; admixture of, in Britain com- 
mencing, 83 ; the Roman, in Britain, 
85 ; the Teutonic, 97 ; the Scandi- 
navian or Danish branch of the 



Teutonic, in Britain, 107; the Nor- 
man-French branch of the Teutonic, 
in Britain, 115 ; the Argument for 
admixture of, 123 ; race components 
of the English people, 124. 

Raed-boran, the, of the British, in 
Devon, recognised as co-ordinate 
with the Witan of Wessex, 254. 

Raphael, gives Jews yellow hair, 456. 

Ravel, or Ralf de Goel, 287. 

Reduplication in local names, 407, 42 T. 

Retzius, on the Celtic skull, 475, 477. 

Renaud off ' Montauban, 488. 

Revenue, the British yield, to Romans, 
132. 

Rex, Latin, used in early Welsh, 188. 

" Rex Anglorum," title first used, 105. 

Richard of Cirencester, quoted, 81, 154, 
160 ; on the tribes of Britain, 162, 
165 ; quoted, 201. 

Richard. Cceur de Lion, 483. 

Richmond Castle, first built by the 
Celtic Chief, Alain of Brittany, 288. 

Riothamus, a British King, 222, note. 

Rivers, Celtic names of, 52, 408 — 410; 
on the Continent, 410. 

Riwallon de Gael, of Brittany, in 
William's army, 287, 288. 

Robert of Gloucester 's Chronicle, 1 1 6, 

374- 

Robert de Vitry, 287. 

Roger de Hoveden, referred to, 117. 

Roll of Battle Abbey, 290. 

Rollo, the Dane, 115 ; visits England, 
271; invades Neustria, ib; creates 
a Celto-Normanrace, 272; conquers 
Neustria, 277. 

Roman army, in Britain, magnitude of, 
94, 157 ; how composed, 186. 

Roman invasion of Britain, 63, 85. 

Roman magnificence reproduced in 
Britain, 182—185. 

Roman population, in Britain, 179 
chief officials in Britain, 180. 

Roman Empire, fall of, 92. 

Roman de Rote, Wace's, referred to 
278, 485. 

Roman complexion, dark, 456, 457. 

Romance literature, the, of the Middle 
ages, of Celtic origin, 482—41)0. 

Romans, the, origin of, 23 ; invade 
Britain, 63, 85 ; retire from Britain, 
92 ; occupy Britain 465 years, ib ; 
their policy was not to extirpate the 
population, 134 ; wise as conquerors, 
135; unsurpassed in government, 
ib; their theory of parental govern- 
ment, 13O ; aimed not at a united 

O J 



564 



l'HE PEDIGREE OF THE ENGLISH. 



"nationality," ib ; their slow pro- 
gress in the subjugation of Britain, 
139; exhausted by the campaign 
against the Silures, 143; their troubles 
increase, 154 ; withdraw from Britain 
when deprived of military protection, 
182 — 185, -admixture of, with Britons, 
185 ; effect of their conquest on the 
spirit of the Britons, 196. 

Romulus, and Remus, story of, 23. 

Rosini's Antiq. Roman., 170, 172. 

Rouen, Rollo's descent upon, 277. 

Rhyme, final, in Latin poetry, 74. 

Sabines, one of theLatian tribes, 23. 

Saint Alban's (Verulamium), the in- 
surrection of the Britons at, 145. 

Salopia Antiqua, Hartshorne's 324. 

Sandwich, the Romans debark at, 87. 

Savigny, in ZeUschrift, ref. to, 170. 

" Saxonicum litus," origin of, 30. 

Saxon, Anglo-, conquest, its beginning, 
97, cq; Hengist and Horsa, 100; the 
successive arrivals and settlements, 
102, 103 ; the Triad on 57. 

Saxon Chronicle, the, referred to, 99, 
102, 103, 109— 113, 183, 204, 205, 
208, 233, 257—260. 

Saxon kingdoms, the. territories em- 
braced by, 103, 104 ; wars, 208. 

" Saxon shore," the, or Litus Saxoni- 
cum, 30, 181, 327. 

Saxons, the, first permanent alien 
settlers in Britain, 58 ; previous 
visits of, to Britain, 99, 153 ; their 
original region, 99 ; their conquest 
of Britain. 97 ; the slowness of their 
progress, 201 — 209. 

Si andlnavia, 30, 35. 

Scandinavian languages, 327. 3! 7. 

Schmid, Dr. R., his Gesetze der An- 
ovisac//.' en, 310, 31 1, 344, 446. 

Schwarzkopf's translation, 41 

Science, and art in ancient Britain, 64, 
09. 75- 

Scotch, the, influx of, in modern times 
into England, 430; character of, 
492 ; ethnology, of, 493. 

Scotland, first peopled, 46: language 
, 7 ; ori 

1 onqui red with di tltj by the 

Romans, 1 47— [49, [50 j had three 
Roman cities of the " Latian Law," 
17;: the kingdom of Strathclyde 
united to, 209 : inhabitants 
of, Celtic, 25(1; re< 
name, 259. 

Scots, the, come from Ireland, 50 ; the 



Caledonii first called Picts and, 

154- 

Segontiaci, the, 132. 

Segontium, (Caer Seiont), 173, 174. 

Semi-Saxon age, English of the, 

charged with Celtic, 373. 
Seneca makes a loan to the unwilling 

Britons, 154. 
Sepulchres, as sources of history, 67. 
Sequana, river Seine, 42. 
Severus, the Emperor, in Britain, 91 ; 

his hazardous campaign in Caledonia, 

150 ; builds a rampart to restrain the 

Caledonians, ib. 
Shakespeare, quoted, 75, 522. 
Shrewsbury \Pengwerri) capital ol 

Powys, 262. 
Siculians, the, a Latian tribe, 23. 
Sidonius Apollinaris, referred to, 222, 

note. 
Silchester, (Callcva Attdb.itum), 177. 
Silures, the, of South Wales, meet 

Ostorius, 142 ; Caractacus's address 

to them before the battle of Caer- 

Caradog, ib ; defeated, 143 ; finally 

subdued, 146; their complexion, 468, 

471. 
Sismondi, his Hist, des Franca:s, re- 
ferred to, 118. 279. 

. the order of, i 

Saxon society, 306. 
Skulls, Celtic, Saxon, Greek, 4 J 

English and "Welsh, 477 — 479. 
Smiles, on the Huguenots, 5< 1 
Society, state of, in early times, as in- 
of admixture betweei 

and Saxons, 304 ; constitution of. 

among the Anglo-Saxons, 305. 
. 1 1 

Saxon times, 308. 
Souvestre, M., on the Belgic people, 

40; on the Breton langua . 
S Q, the histori. . 

[s, bronze, 

67. 
St. form's 

battle of the. ; 
Stanley. Dean, on 5 
: , 402. 

Britain, 101 — 
. 
Stillingfleet, his - 

■ '7 v 
Strabo, 1. 
37 ; his account of I 

mplexion 
of Gauls and 



INDEX. 



S u 



Straits of Gibraltar, crossed by the 
Celts, 34. 

Strathclyde, the kingdom of, incorpo- 
rated with Scotland, 209 ; its Celtic 
character to a late date, 256, 257 ; 
the Britons of, choose Edward as 
lord, 257. 

Strat-clwyt, see Ystrad-clwyd, and 
Strathclyde. 

Suetonius, the Roman General, opposes 
Boadicea, 91 ; slaughters the Druids 
of Anglesea, ib ; again referred to, 
144; his great preparations to meet 
Boadicea, 145. 

Suetonius Tranquillus, quoted. 471. 

Surnames, a modern invention, 424. 

Sweyn, the Dane, gains the English 
throne, 113. 

Tacitus, on the valour of the Briton?, 
63 ; referred to, 22, 43, 44, 62, 63, 90, 
91, 141 — 149, 156 — 158,168; his life 
of Agricola, 91 ; his Annates referred 
to, ib. ; on the progress of the Britons 
under Agricola, 94 ; on complexion 
of the Germans, 458 ; on complexion 
of Caledonians and Silurians, 468. 

Tal, a Cymric word in Pictish, 57. 

Tal, Welsh word for head, 51. 

Taliesin, referred to, 106, 187, 237. 

Tamar, the river, made the boundary 
of the Britons, 252. 

Tanaist, epithet, its etymology. 259. 

Taran, a Pictish Cymric name, 51. 

Tax-gatherers, oppress the Britons, 146. 

Taylor's, Rev. Is., Words and Places, 
quoted or referred to, 324, 404. 

Tertullian, refers to the Britons, 159 ; 
on hair-colour of Romans, Sec, 457. 

Teutonic Settlements in Gaul, 30. 

Teutonic and Celtic related, 29. 

Teutons and Celts related, 28, how dis- 
tinct, 29 ; how related, ib. 

Thanct, Saxons driven into, 204. 

Theodoret, historian, referred to, 154. 

Iheowes, in Anglo-Saxon society, 30(1. 

Thessaly, inhabitants of, 22. 

Thierry, Amadee, his Hist, des Gaulois, 
referred to, 42. 

Thierry, Aug., his Conqu&te d' Ingle- 
terre, referred to, 115 — 119. 

Thirwall's, Bp. ; Hist, of Greece re- 
ferred to, 23. 

Thorn mcrel's, Dc, RechercheS snr la 
Fusion, Cr'c, referred to, 329, 39S. 

Thucydides, on origin of Hellenes, 22. 

Thurnam, Dr., on Crania, 473. 

Tim Bobbin, works of, quoted, 53. 



Tin, the Britons workers in, 60, 62. 

Togodumnus, brother of Caract., 140. 

Tombs of dead, sources of history, 
67. 

Tor, twr, in Celtic names, 293, 406. 

Torques, golden, used by the Ancient 
Britons, 69. 

Tostig, son of Godwin, 117. 

Towns, Celtic names of, in England, 
411 — 416; 412; and on the Con- 
tinent, 413. 

Towns, Roman, in Britain, 170 — 17S ; 
their nature and purposes, 170. 

Tradition, value of, 30. 

Tre, Welsh for abode, 38, 291, 413. 

Trench, Abp., his Sacred Latin Poetry, 
referred to, 74. 

Triads, the Welsh, evidence of, 54 - 
5S, 127, 171, 203; probable relation 
of, to Druidism, 74 ; the wisdom they 
enshrine, 75 ; their terseness and ful- 
ness, ib. ; Pythagorean in tone, ib. ; 
Christian in doctrine, ib. ; an index 
to culture of Britons, ib. ; example 
of the, 76, 417. 

Tribes of Britain, mentioned by Caesar, 
164 ; mentioned by Ptolemy, il>. ; 
by Richard of Cirencester, 165 ; 
some of them powerful, 169. 

Tribal arii, the Britons were, 133. 

Trinobantes. oppose Caesar, 89, 131 ; 
their seat in Britain, 165. 

Trouveres Poetry of France, 483. 

Tun, the Anglo-Saxon for town, 306. 

Tun-gerefa, office of, 306. 

Turner, Sharon, ref. to 99, 299, 300. 

Tweed, river, names related to, 52. 

TwelfJiaendmen, order of, in Anglo- 
Saxon times, 306. 

Twihaendmen, the order of, in Anglo- 
Saxon times, 306. 

Tyrrhenians, the, of Latium, 23. 

Uish, water, in old Cymric, 3", note. 
Umbri, the, a tribe of Latium, 23. 
United Slates, the people of the, not 

" Anglo-Saxons," 513. 
Unity of the human race, 26. 
Dasher's, Archb., Eccles. Brit, quoted 

161, 201. 

Valentia, province 01, 177, note, 178. 

'la, the Saxon, ; ■ ;. 
Vallej , Cell ic name i "T, in England, 

41 r ; cm tin- < lontinent, .| 12. 
\ ;: i .Ml ige, Saxon law 1 of; identical 
with the Ancient British, 4 17. 
lotia name of North Wales, cog- 



566 



THE PEDIGREE OE THE ENGLISH. 



nate with Veneti in Brittany, Veneti 
in Italy, 127, note. 

Veneti, the name, cognate with Welsh, 
Givynedd, Venetia, &c., 127, note. 

Venta, Venetia, Venedotia, 127, note. 

Verulamhtm, (St. Alban's), the great 
slaughter of Roman allies at, 145 ; 
one of the two Roman Municipia in 
Britain, 171. 

Vespasian in Britain, 141, 144. 

Victoiy, statue of, falls, 145. 

Villani, the class of, in Anglo-Saxon 
times, 308 ; the Britons supposed to 
be placed among the, ib. 

Villemarque, Vicomte H. H. de la, 
quoted, 302 ; his works, ib., note. 

Vil mar's Ortsnamen, 408. 

Virgil, quoted, 59, 135. 

Vocabularies, volume of, 374. 

Vocabularies, Aelfric's, 364. 

Vortigern {Gwrtheynt), invites Hcngist 
and Horsa, 100, 202; marries Rhon- 
wen, 204 ; claims the office of Pen- 
dragon, 199 ; condemned by the 
Triads, 203 ; the bard Golyddan on, 
234- 

Wace, referred to, 278, 485. 

Wales, the Silures of, attacked by the 
Romans, 142 ; the Druids of, exter- 
minated, 144 ; Wales hitherto vir- 
tually independent, 146 ; Frontinus 
subdues the Silures of, ib. ; early 
Christian martyrs in, 160 ; one only 
of the Roman Colonics situated in, 
174 ; entitled Britannia Secunda 
under the Romans, 177 ; the cities 
called Stipendiaries in it, 175 ; the 
Cumbrians retire into, 261 ; little in- 
fluenced by Danish and Norman in- 
vasions, 207 ; Danish settlements in, 
432 ; Teutonic names in, ib. ; more 
intimate union of with England 
needed, 507 ; people of, and of 
England, one, 508 ; English lan- 
guage in, 509; education the great 
want of, ib.: learning in, 547. 

" Wales, North," W. of Malmesbury's 
designation of Wales, 248. 

' Wales, West," Saxon name of Devon 
and Cornwall, 233, 2.) 4. 

Wall of Agricola, 91 ; of Hadrian, ib.; 
of Scverus, described, 91, 150; 
second wall of Agricola, 147. 

Wealas (original of Welsh), the name 
given by the Saxons to the natives, 
t02, 200, 232. 2. |'), 300. 

lleal-eviaie, the, vv territory of the 



aboriginal Britons, Temp. Alfred, 
250 ; the omission in Domesday of 
Celtic names in, 252 ; in the tenth 
century, 543. 

Welsh, origin of the name, 102, 208, 
232, 249. , 

Welsh language, the, 45, 47 ; similarity 
of to the Breton, 47 ; dissimilarity 
to Irish, 48 ; similarity to Cornish, 
49 ; classified under Cymbric branch 
of Celtic, ib ; its relation to Greek 
318, 338 ; divergence of modern from 
ancient Welsh, 335; as preserver of 
Anglo-Saxon, 345 ; extensive cor- 
ruption of, through Latin, French, 
English, 380—384; archaic words, 
common to, and to Teutonic, 382 — 
384 ; remains of in local names of 
England, 408 — 410; exclusive main- 
tenance of, in Wales, an evil, 50S ; 
materials in, derived from Latin, Sec, 
xVppendLx A : archaic elements in, in 
common with Teutonic and other 
tongues, Appendix B. 

" Welshery " of Pembrokeshire, 437. 

Welshmen, of middle ages, dark, 4115 ; 
modem, dark, ib., note. 

Wergild, among the Saxons, 310, 500. 

Wessex, Saxon kingdom of, established, 
102, 104 ; presence of Britons in, at 
a late period, 208 ; its throne occu- 
pied by a Briton in name, 243 : 
ruled by Egbert, 244, make- efforts 
to subjugate " West Wales," ib. : 
Britons separately exist in, till near 
the Conquest, 255. 

Westmoreland, inhabitants of, Celtic, 
256, 257, 261 ; inundated by Nor 
wegians, 269. 

// 'est-Saexen-lage, the code of Wessex, 
446, 449. 

West Wales, or Cornwall, 244, 24S. 

William of Malmesbury, referred to 
93, 251,258.283. 

V illiam, the Conqueror, his claim to 
the English throne, 116; hi- way 
prepared, 117: his averred compact 
with Edward the Confessor, ib. ; 
exacts an oath from Harold, ib; 
prepares to invade England, ib. ; 
lands at Pevcnscy. Il8; wins the 
battle of Hastings, ib.. 273: his l",.l- 
lowers but qualified "Nora 
— 2S5 ; Bretons, and other Celts, in 
his army, 285— ; 1 ;■ 

Williams, Rev. Rowland, D.D.. on 
Cymryand Gaels, 41, note; on the 
Teutonic complexion, 



INDEX. 



5^7 



Williams, Rev. R. his Lexicon Cormi- 

Britannicn?n, 47, 49. 
Wilson, Dr. Daniel, his Prehtst. Annals 

of Scotland, quoted, 478. 
Winchester, the name, 127. 
Windisch, Dr. Ernst, on Fick's Wurter- 

buch, 15. 
Wit and humour, Celtic, 495. 
Worcestershire, people of, Celtic, 

263. 
Worsaae, Dr., on Danes in England, 

269; on Scandinavian skulls, 520. 
Wotton's, Dr., Leges Wallia, 188, 

448. 
Wright, T., M.A., F.S.A., his opinion 

on the post-Roman language of 

Britain, 320 ; his ed. of Vocabularies, 

330. 
Writing known among the Britons, 71. 
Ify, Welsh for water and root of ivysg, 

38, note. 
Wyliscman, the, characterised, 312. 



Wysg, not necessarily Irish, 423. 

Xanthous Complexion of Germans, 458. 
Xiphilinus, quoted, 155, note. 

Ynys, Fel, name of Britain, 54, 55. 
Yoriv {Eboracitni), one of the two 

Roman Municipia in Britain, 171. 
Ystrad-clwyd, kingdom of, 257. 
Yvam cle Galles, 426. 

Zeuss, on names Cymro and Cymru, 
31,49; his G rammatica Celtica, re- 
ferred to, 32, 49, 334, 406; his 
Deutsch. v. d. Nachbarst ; quoted, 
221 ; his account of Germanus's 
return from Britain, 221; states that 
Armoricans were called "Bretton" 
and " Britttanni," ib., note. 

Zosimus, the historian, referred to, 154. 

Zumpt, on words Municipiurn and 
Colonia, 170. 



LONDON I JUDD A.N'B CO., PlhljNlX I'KJNTINC WOKKS, DOCTORS' COMMONS, B.C. 



£h/. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



Recently Published, in z zoh., Super Royal Svo., Emlessed, Gil!,pf. \ 
Price £3 3s. 

ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE COUNTIES 
AND FAMILIES OF WALES. 

Containing the Political Histoiy, Genealogy, and Heraldry 01 the 

Principality in separate Counties. With 1S0 Illustrations en wocd. from 
photographs of Castles, Mansions, Arms, Seals, Tombs, &c. 

By THOMAS NICHOLAS, M.A., Ph.D., F.G.S. 



London: LONGMANS, GREEN, REAPLPv & Co., Paternoster Rev, 



{From the AthenvEUM.] 

" This is one of the most valuable and useful historical woiks thai \ 
seen for some time, and Dr. Nicholas deserves our thanks for the manner in which 

he has executed his task Each county of the Principality is sepal 

described. AYc have first its physical geography, and afterwards a ( 
description of its archaeological remains, including notices of its ancient buildings, 
its castles, and abbeys. Then we have, in each county, an elaborate account of 
its old and extinct Families, as far as they can be traced, and this is folk, 
a history of the present County Families, and their pedigrees. We can recom- 
mend this book as one of great value as well as i f authority : it is, in fact, the 
best and fullest Histoiy of "Wales that we po 







^r 







^ V? 







<•/' 






* 



O0 N 

V 




.v 



,0 o 



^.'wV 



O0 v 



^0 0, 



- 









"V- ,\V 






**> 






■# N * 






















;>>i 



- 









-\- 




q 






; .^'^ ' 









~> 







C> v 



... ,^ v 



; 












- 









, 


















• 









' 



W 




<y - 

.V 




V >- V* 






W 



.** 













^'^ 












4 -7j ' : ' 










4?% 



A 






.00 









'</• .\\ V 
























vV ■/-. 









$ ^ 









v? <<■ 












o 






